Vengeance
by Kavi Leighanna
Summary: Chicago seemed a thing of the past, a cold case that would only haunt her nightmares. Then Leah shows up in Washington and Emily is thrown into the case all over again. Will be Emily-Hotch
1. Prologue

_**Okay, before I get into the meat of this there's a few things that need to be said:**_

_**1) Technically, this is the story that's meant to follow Trusting in Change. That story sets the foundation for the relationship between Emily and Hotch and some of his concern for what's going on in this story.**_

_**2) I have, in no way shape or form, forgotten about **__**One of Your Own**__**. On the contrary, it's blown so out of control, I don't think I could. I will still be writing it, no worries. This is for the times I get stuck on **__**One**__** and need a little bit of a break. This, and the other AU CM story I'm currently working on. That one probably won't get posted until I've finished at least one of these two.**_

_**3) There are going to be things that aren't going to be regulation. If you need to, suspend your disbelief for a while so this makes sense. **_

_**4) Updates will not be regular in the slightest. I know, I'm going to make any reader wait almost forever because I'm building and building, but this is both a test and a side work for me. Updates are going to get farther and farther between as it is simply because school is coming up and I'm going to be crazy busy. I've already started planning my annual Christmas story so that I can start writing it and posting it with the regularity I'm used to.**_

_**5) **__**This is one of those stories where reviews are more important than ever.**__** This is off the beaten path for me because I'm throwing in an original character to wreak some havoc on Emily's psyche, so to speak. Any opinion is greatly appreciated and since I'm posting irregularly, ideas are also welcome. The chapters I've written are disgustingly short and I'd love opinions on interactions people would like to see.**_

_**Now, I'm sorry for keeping you so long. I hope you enjoy this!**_

* * *

**Prologue**

--

Scared came nowhere close to defining what Leah Scott was feeling at that moment. Scared was reserved for those times where someone told a particularly good ghost story or your house creaked in the middle of the night. Leah was petrified and it had everything to do with the fact that she'd just moved from Chicago to Seattle.

Most eight-year-olds wouldn't really think twice about cross-country moving. Most of them would probably throw a fit about leaving friends behind, about having to start at a whole new school, but none of those things bothered Leah. What bothered Leah was much deeper.

"Please, Em?"

The raven-haired woman driving the midnight black Tahoe sighed. "Lee, how many times have we been through this?"

"Eight hundred?" Leah responded smartly. "I just don't understand why I have to move this far!"

"Sweetie, listen to me, okay? The guy is still out there."

That thought utterly terrified the girl. "But-"

"No buts. You are a ward of the state, but more importantly, you're a living victim, a witness," the older woman explained patiently. She was used to Leah.

And Leah was used to her. She was the one tangible connection she had to everything, the one person who she trusted with her life. Which, really, was what she was currently doing.

"We need to keep you safe and you keep you safe…"

"You're putting me in Witness Protection, I know. But why in Seattle?"

"Because it's far away from Chicago."

"Em," Leah whined.

She sighed, turning onto a small residential street. "I know it isn't the best," she began slowly. "And I'm sorry I have to take you so far away from everything you've known."

Leah knew she was. If there was something she'd learned about the dark-haired woman it was that she was loyal to those she cared about. And she cared deeply about Leah. "You just want what's best for me."

"I do. We agree this is what's best for you."

Leah watched the houses go by, trying to guess which was going to be her new neighbours. It was difficult for her to truly comprehend what was about to happen. It was one of those things she was just going to have to experience. She understood the logistics of being placed with a foster family, an adopted family, but she didn't know how she'd fit. She had no idea if she'd like her new 'parents'. She wanted her own back.

But that wasn't going to happen and the scars up her arms were a painful reminder. Her parents had been stabbed to death in a string of apparent murder-suicides in Chicago and Detroit. They still hadn't found the guy. Leah was the only survivor. The young agent sitting beside her was her hero and the closest thing she now had to family.

The house they pulled into had a perfectly manicured garden, but the grass hadn't been mowed in a couple of days and it gave Leah a little bit of hope. She wasn't exactly into the whole idea of the perfect little family. She was damaged and she'd never fit into that view. She climbed out of the SUV, backpack on her shoulder and took the proffered hand from her companion. It gave her a little bit of strength for what she was about to do.

The door opened to a friendly enough looking woman. She was dressed like Em on her days off in comfortable looking jeans and a t-shirt. She smiled brightly at Leah before waving them in. "Kitchen's this way," she said.

"I have to get back to Chicago."

The words almost froze Leah's blood. "Can't you stay just a little bit longer?"

The woman seemed to sense that this was something between the other two. "I'll go get David. He'll be so happy to meet our Bell."

There was about five seconds before Leah let herself launch into her nerves. "I don't want to stay here, I want to stay back in Chicago. Can't I live with Casey?"

"Leah, listen."

And she did. It wasn't often she got her full first name.

"I know this isn't ideal, okay? I know it's a strange city, a strange family, strange neighbours, a strange house… but you need to make the best of it. You knew I was going to have to go sometime."

"But does it have to be now? Can't you be here for a little while? Just until I get settled in?"

The smile she got was sad. "I can't, sweetheart. I have to go back to Chicago. I have a pile of cases on my desk and a team to help."

"Your stupid job."

Dark eyes glittered in affection as she tweaked Leah's nose. "It's what saved your life, so don't knock it 'til you've tried it." She sighed and pulled Leah to a nearby bench. "I have your e-mail. When I get home, I'll set up a free account, just for us. We'll chat all the time."

"Promise?"

"I promise. And you have the Seattle number in case of an emergency? And the laptop?"

The laptop had been a gift, all pre-set up with the features she'd need to maintain connections and still follow the rules of the Witness Protection Program. Leah nodded.

"Lee, in all seriousness, I can't stress how important it is that you work with me, with us."

"I know."

"No contact with your friends in Chicago. Nothing. Not even a text message, okay? To the rest of the world you're not Leah Scott anymore."

"I'm Annabelle White," Leah said dejectedly. She went willingly into the hug she was pulled into.

"To me, you'll always be Leah."

Leah sniffled as she pulled back. "Promise."

"I promise."

* * *

"Mom, I'm home!"

"In the kitchen."

Annabelle made her way through the front foyer of the house, arching an eyebrow at her father as he passed. He shouldn't be home for at least another hour. She hadn't lost track of time at work. It had been a busy day of work and school for the sixteen-year-old sophomore, but it was her life and she enjoyed the busyness of her schedule. "Hey Mom."

"Hi honey. How was work?"

"Chuck dumped a soda over Dan again," she responded, kissing her mother's cheek.

"Hmm."

Annabelle wrinkled her brow. Her mother was usually talkative, usually asking all sorts of questions about her day about her friends. "Is everything okay?"

Her father cleared his throat from the kitchen doorway. "Bells, you're going to want to see this."

Annabelle wrinkled her nose. "Did somebody die?" Her parents didn't laugh and Annabelle felt a lump form in her throat. "What's going on?"

Her father held out the paper to her and she took it with shaking hands. There, on the cover: _Sixteen-Year-Old Takes Own Life After Slaying Family. _

Annabelle scanned the article briefly, then read the whole thing through in more detail. She remembered those details, remembered telling them to her parents not six months before. She shivered. "Please, no."

"We've already called Agent Spring at the Seattle office," her father said softly. "They want you out of here."

"I'll go to Washington," Annabelle said without thinking twice. "That's back across the country. I'll be safe there."

"You don't know anyone in Washington," her mother argued.

"I don't," Annabelle agreed. "But Leah does."


	2. Chapter 1

_**I think my goal will be to write as many of my author's notes at the top here as I can. That way they're out of the way for the rest of the story. I think. We'll see how well that works.**_

_**I apologize for this being the shortest chapter of my life. I think I've written one shorter chapter, but it was a prologue or something and to make it any longer would have taken away from the impact of the chapter itself. BUT! There are lots of chapters written. Still, I repeat, this will be taken slowly. I head back to school in a few days and once I get started it's going to be crazy-nuts-insane for me. I'll try to update a story every week or so (my actual goal is to update 2 a week) but I make no guarantees. **_

* * *

**Chapter 1**

Coming back from cases was a blessing and a curse. The blessing was the ability to sleep in one's own bed. The blessing was the fact that one more disgusting pervert or sadistic murderer was behind bars. The curse was the mounds and mounds of paperwork it entailed. And Emily Prentiss was no less happy about doing it than her colleagues. Still, it was a welcome change from the hectic nature of their away cases.

"You know, I could do with a routine consult right now," Derek Morgan, her colleague and probably best friend in the whole entire world groused.

"I don't know why, it would be no less stressful than any of our away cases," Spencer Reid contradicted. "In fact, an interview would probably be less intellectually stimulating for you-"

"Reid, I didn't ask for a breakdown," Derek said with amused exasperation.

Emily grinned. "I'm with Reid. We've had too many away cases. It'll do us all good to take some time to cool down." Well, it didn't make a difference to her, but JJ was being worn down by the mixture of cases, flying and her pregnancy. There had been many times over their last trip to Des Moines that Emily had found herself holding back her colleague's long blond hair in the bathroom. She didn't mind it, she just hoped JJ would take some time to relax.

Rossi needed to make a run for his cabin too. The man was getting too cynical and Emily would bet her month's rent on the problem being his constant time in the office. She tried to get him to go home at night, but he'd fooled her the first few times. Then she'd started staying until he left. Then, until Aaron Hotchner, her supervisor, left. It was just what she did.

Which brought her to another person who was desperately in need of a break. Even though the divorce was finalized, Haley seemed to find it endlessly amusing to harass Hotch about anything and everything. He'd already moved out of the house into his own childproofed apartment and given up almost everything he'd once owned, just to make the break a little bit cleaner and easier to deal with, but Haley seemed to want to pick fights with him. And that didn't even touch on the things she'd been pulling with Jack, Hotch's son. Emily had finally almost forced him to call a lawyer about it.

"She can't break a custody agreement, Hotch, you know that," she'd said, trying to convince him.

"Ha," Derek laughed, bringing Emily's attention back to the present and her colleagues. "We're going to be spending the next two weeks trying to keep up with this paperwork. It's like every time we have to draw our weapons we have to fill out a form."

"Three, actually," came Rossi's voice from the doorway. The younger members of the team had taken up the conference room, preferring to work in close proximity to each other. It often made paperwork go by faster. It looked like Rossi was prepping to join them.

"See, now that's just bad for the environment," Derek groused as he signed another piece of paper and tucked it into the appropriate file. "Half of the time we don't even fire them."

"Bureaucratic red tape. Ain't it a bitch," Rossi quipped as Emily's phone trilled.

"Agent Prentiss," she said, her customary greeting when she hadn't checked the caller ID.

Derek and Dave watched as Emily's entire body stiffened and the pen fell from her hand. Something or someone on the other end of the phone had really hit a nerve in their usually unflappable colleague. And they wanted to know what.

"Whoa, sweetie, slow down."

Derek arched an eyebrow at his brunette colleague but didn't get a response.

"Honey, breathe, okay? You need to stop panicking."

Now Derek looked to Dave, to see if there was a piece of Emily's life he'd missed. Dave looked as clueless as he did.

"Where are you? I'll come and get you." She was already moving, phone pressed between her shoulder and her ear as she frantically piled papers into folders with no care as to which went where. That in itself sent up a red flag. Emily was always anal about her file organization.

Derek smacked her hands out of the way, concern in his brow as he went about organizing them again. When he looked up at her she had on the stone face he saw during cases.

"Okay, I'm on my way but I'll be a while. Do not move, whatever you do, hear me? I don't care if you are about to wet your pants, you do not move from that spot. Not even for security. Name drop if you have to…"

Derek wished he could have heard the end of the conversation, but Emily had all but sprinted out the door. He hadn't seen her move that fast in a long time.

"Wonder what that was about," Dave said, watching the glass door close behind her. Emily had almost bowled Hotch over as she raced down the walkway.

"Everything okay?" the dark-haired man asked.

Derek and Dave both shrugged. They had no idea what had sent Emily running to the hills, but whatever it was, she was seriously panicked.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

--

Leah was anxiously looking around Ronald Reagan National Airport, watching the faces of people pass. There were a few times she'd actually thought she saw her surrogate aunt in the sea of faces, but it hadn't been her. She was getting anxious, itchy and it was driving her crazy. She hated having to look over her shoulder. She'd thought that was finished when she moved to Seattle and started her new life away from Chicago, away from the living hell she'd experienced.

"Leah?"

It took her a few minutes to spot the concerned dark eyes of the woman she probably trusted most in the world and she felt herself start to break down. It had been adrenaline that had gotten her on the plane that morning, adrenaline that had kept her moving, walking, stoic when she knew there was a serial killer in Seattle that had stalked her across the county.

Emily felt the same way she had when Leah had said goodbye to her eight years prior. She even smelled the same, the faint scent of roses almost completely overridden by the vanilla-lavender mix she associated with Emily. It was enough to bring the tears down her cheeks. Her body shook with silent sobs as she clung to Emily tightly, hands balled in fists in Emily's suit jacket. It was a while before she could calm herself down.

It was Emily that pushed her away when Leah had calmed down substantially. The older woman's hands moved to cup Leah's cheeks in her palms.

"Are you okay?" she asked, brushing hair away from Leah's tear-stained cheeks.

Leah shook her head, biting her lip. She instantly regretted it at the panic that popped into Emily's face.

"Are you hurt? Did he get to you? Are David and Liz okay?"

"Mom and Dad are fine," Leah was quick to reassure, though her voice was hoarse and scratchy. "I'm fine."

"Physically," Emily agreed, understanding.

Leah nodded, chewing her lip to keep more tears at bay. "I'm scared."

Emily wrapped her in another hug. "I know, sweetie." They held onto each other for a few minutes before Emily pulled back. "Do you have everything?" she asked.

"Yeah," Leah answered, grabbing the handles of a nearby duffle bag. "I wasn't sure how long I'd have to stay or even if I could stay or if you'd be sending me-"

"Stop," Emily commanded. "I'll call Agent Spring tomorrow morning and get it ironed out with him. He told you to leave Seattle?"

"He thought that was the best thing I could probably do," Leah agreed. "Mom called him for me. Or Dad."

Emily smiled, trying to be reassuring, tucking hair behind the sixteen-year-old's ear. "You can stay for as long as you want, as long as you're safe."

Leah nodded, her throat choked with tears. "Thanks, Aunt Em."

* * *

Derek wanted to ask what had happened when Emily returned looking haggard and exhausted. When she'd come in that morning she'd looked well-rested and had been in a very happy mood. The woman who walked into the bullpen now was a completely different person. And Derek was more than concerned.

"Everything okay?" he asked as she plopped down on her chair. "You raced out of here like your pants were on fire."

Emily tried for a smile. "Personal emergency. Did Hotch miss me?"

"Em, you almost ran him over on your way out of the War Room." He didn't bother to hide his concern now.

She swore softly. "Did I really?"

She looked so incredibly upset at the thought that Derek's heart went out to her. It wasn't often Emily was so caught up in something she forgot the world around her. "He's worried."

"Damn it."

"What's up?"

She rubbed a hand over her forehead. "Nothing," she replied. "Do you think Dave would let me use his phone?"

"Uh…?"

But Emily was already up and moving. "Dave?"

"Hey. Everything okay?"

"Fine," she answered with a tight smile. "Can I use your phone?"

He arched an eyebrow at her. "My phone?"

"The one in your office. I have to make a private call and-"

"Of course." It wasn't difficult to remember that not too long ago, Dave had been the one keeping secrets. He knew Emily Prentiss. When she was ready, she'd talk.

Emily smiled as he passed. "Thanks Dave."

"Sure thing."

She blessed his tact when he closed the door behind him. This was a call she wanted to make as far away from Leah as she could. She didn't want their guy to be able to trace the call back to Leah.

"Agent Spring."

"Bob, it's Emily."

"Hey Em. I take it our girl left."

"Hightailed it is more like it. What does it look like?"

"Looks like he's repeating himself in Seattle. We're on it. Is she safe there?"

"Unless he gets hold of some sort of leak she'll be fine. Keep an eye on Liz and David, okay?"

"Will do. Thanks for calling. I'll keep you updated."

Emily blew out a sigh of relief as she hung up. Bob Spring wasn't one to beat around the bush, something she admired about him. Their conversation was straight, short and to the point, the way Emily preferred business conversations to go. Still, it took a lot of Emily's control to maintain her calm. Leah was like her daughter, a younger sister, someone younger she took care of because she loved them.

She dropped her head into her hands, trying to keep her mind straight. It was difficult to keep her mind objective, to look at this like she would without her emotions to cloud her judgment. What was she supposed to do with Leah? How was she supposed to consider this without thinking about Leah? What on earth was she supposed to do if this became one of their cases? With the state lines and the sheer number of murders this guy had committed, it wouldn't be a far stretch. All logic said she'd have to step away from the case if it came to that point.

This was a royal mess.


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

--

Things were fine the next couple of days and Leah seemed perfectly content to sit in Emily's apartment. Emily didn't question her just yet. It had to be hard enough to think about what was going on without adding anything else to it. Nagging could most certainly wait.

At work, things progressed as Emily felt was normal. She'd done a few consults for various departments around the nation, bantered with Derek and had her usual morning conversations with Dave. But that didn't mean her teammates didn't see a difference in her. In fact, there were stress lines where they usually formed during cases, there was a jerk to her head every time JJ came into the bullpen and she seemed to blow out a breath every time her phone rang.

It was making Hotch nervous. Emily was a rock, always had been, and though he hadn't treated her as a team member when she'd come in, things had certainly changed since she caught him on the phone with Haley. Or, more accurately, she'd been in the office while he was talking to his ex-wife. It had taken a conversation with Dave to realize that she was there late because she wanted to make sure he went home. It was then that he started to watch. It was then he started to notice the way she treated her teammates. It was then he realized how much a family they truly were.

So her anxiousness was nerve-wracking, from a woman who had looked some pretty scary people in the face and interviewed them as if they were Joe Schmo from next door. She was calm, cool and collected. He rarely saw her actually lose her temper and any worry was quite carefully kept under wraps. This one, however, seemed to be leaking through and Hotch's only conclusion was that this time, it was personal.

Her friends were trying. Each one of them had tried to talk to her, tried to reassure her that they were there for her through whatever the issue was. Emily smiled through the little small talk and at the end, had always managed to turn the conversation back on whomever she was talking to. It was disconcerting and somewhat annoying for each person who had attempted it. Even Penelope hadn't been able to get anything out of Emily, and not for lack of trying.

Three days after Emily had almost run him over trying to get out of the bullpen, JJ walked in, face grim. Hotch knew that coolly professional look and, more importantly, knew what it meant. Something was amiss in the world and there was someone out there that needed their help.

"Agent Bob Spring, Seattle field office."

Hotch knew Bob Spring. They'd worked together during Hotch's brief stint in Seattle, before being called to the BAU. "This is with the Bureau?"

JJ nodded. Then quickly laid out the most important facts of the case. She'd been in this situation enough times to know what was significant and what was not. She knew how to make the BAU see the case as important. Still, there was a professional air to her as she detailed the case quickly and efficiently. She saw the almost imperceptible twitch of Hotch's jaw and knew.

"I'll take the file. We'll meet in an hour."

JJ nodded as she left and Hotch leaned back in his seat. An hour would give him more than enough time to go through the file not once, but at least the twice he required before going into a briefing. She wasn't as good as their illustrious Dr Reid when it came to remembering things.

And this one looked to be a doozy.

* * *

Emily walked with trepidation to the conference room, Derek on her left, somber and serious. Cases so close together were a strain on all of them and with Emily's extra emotional baggage… This one seemed to close to be coincidence. She took a seat to Dave's left, right between the older man and her superior. Derek took Dave's right, beside both Dave and Penelope, Reid, the other side of Hotch. JJ stood at the end of the table, file open, remote in hand.

"Seattle Washington," JJ said, pulling up the crime scene photos and family pictures. "Just hit by a cross-country serial killer."

"Cross-country?" Derek asked in surprise, flipping through the pages of the case file.

"They're rare," Reid agreed, his voice contemplative. "Very few serial killers feel comfortable enough to stretch that wide."

"He started eight years ago in Chicago. The thought is that he's been working his way across to Seattle," JJ answered.

Dave whistled, impressed. "He's hunting. Compulsively hunting."

"What?" Derek asked.

Emily sighed, the first sound she'd made since the briefing began. She'd hoped it wasn't going to come to this, that the case would stay out of their hands. "I think the more appropriate question is 'who'."

"He's been chasing people across the country?" Derek asked, the idea sounding ludicrous to his ears.

"They're sure these and the cross-country murders are connected to a string of murder-suicides that happened in Chicago around 2000," JJ replied.

"I remember the case," Derek said, nodding slowly. "PD passed it to the feds hoping they'd have better resources. Trail went cold after the Scott family was killed. Family of four, if I remember right. Stabbed to death in their home one night."

Emily tried to keep the shaking of her hands under wraps, a difficult task when sitting between two men that pioneered the job she now enjoyed. Did Leah know about the cross-country trail? She knew the teenager was likely to catch on fast and blame herself for the deaths in between. That was just who Leah was.

"The eight-year-old daughter survived," JJ added. "They put her in Witness Protection. Only a handful of people know where she is. Agent Spring, the agent in charge on the Seattle end, said that if Leah Scott had been in Seattle, she wouldn't be now."

"We need to know where she was living before she disappeared and where she could have gone. If he's hunting her, I want to know why," Hotch said.

Emily knew she was between a rock and a hard place. She flipped her file closed as JJ groaned.

"The red tape is going to be a disaster, Hotch. You know how closely WPP protects victims like her."

"There's no other way. We'll have to hope they think she's in as much danger as we do," Hotch replied.

Emily looked around the room, noticing Dave's curious gaze and blew out a breath. "She certainly thinks she's in danger. The guy's after her. She's the one who got away."

"We have no way of knowing that," Dave argued.

"We don't even have proof she was living in Seattle," Derek agreed.

"She's been living in Seattle since she was eight," Emily said softly, looking down at the file in front of her. It was easier than meeting their eyes. "And he's after her. Leah got a letter just before we put her in the program detailing what he'd do to her when he found her. It's in the Chicago case file. We never told Leah about it."

"We?" Dave asked mildly.

Emily locked her eyes on Dave's. "Yeah, 'we'," she agreed dully. "It was my case."

* * *

_**I feel like creepy music needs to be playing right now. **_

_**So what do you guys think now that the team knows about Emily and Leah? Review and let me know!**_


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

--

Silence fell at Emily's declaration. That was a curveball they hadn't been expecting. Emily's eyes were hard as she tried to recall her memories of the case.

"The Scott murders happened after Chicago PD passed the case off to us," she began. "Leah was curled up in her bedroom closet, unconscious, blood everywhere. We checked her pulse and got her out of there when we discovered she was alive. She fought us in the ambulance, but we got her to the hospital.

"She was in surgery for six hours. They weren't sure she was going to make it, but Leah's stubborn. It was two weeks before she woke up, but she did. We questioned her about it in the hospital, the attack, I mean. She remembered waking up at the feeling of intense pain and remembered seeing a guy standing over her. She's a light sleeper."

Emily missed the look that passed between her teammates at her intimate knowledge of their survivor.

"She was our best bet in identifying the guy. Then, the day after she was released into protective custody, they published an article about the cases saying Leah survived. Twenty-four hours later, we had a letter in our hot little hands addressed to Leah from our unsub. She was in Seattle a month later. I took her there myself."

"You were her handler?" Hotch asked, eyes hard. Emily was their most objective agent, the one who could make calm sense of the most stressful situations and he'd come to rely on that about her. He'd come to rely on a lot of her personality points too, and not just during cases.

"I was the only person she'd talk to. Literally," Emily responded. "I remember Agent Zeller calling me from the hospital saying she wasn't saying a word. They figured they'd try a woman, but I think she recognized me as the person who pulled her out of the closet. She wouldn't speak to anyone else."

"Why?" Derek asked.

"Traumatized, I guess. I rode in the ambulance with her, went to visit her while she was out… They made an exception in transferring her. I guess they figured her life had already been completely destroyed so they'd give her this one little pleasure."

"Have you stayed in contact?" Dave asked. He couldn't fault her. He'd broken the rules too.

"E-mail mostly, anonymous accounts," Emily answered, her eyes darting around the room to each of her colleagues. This was surprisingly difficult for her to talk about in her usual detached manner.

"Where is she now?" Hotch asked sharply.

"She flew into Reagan about three days ago, sir," Emily responded, reverting back to her days as a new agent in the BAU and her back straightened reflexively. It was all in Hotch's tone, a tone he only used on particularly stubborn suspects.

"And we're just hearing about it now?"

"I had to sign a contract to be able to keep in touch with her," Emily tried to explain. "Her existence was a strictly need-to-know piece of information. I contacted Agent Spring as soon as she was in my custody."

Hotch had to give her credit. She was nothing if not thorough. "She's staying with you?"

"Yes, sir."

He hated it when she called him 'sir'. "Bring her in. We need to know as much as we can about her and about the case."

* * *

"Aunt Em, I can't do this."

Emily sighed and caught Leah as she tried to bowl past her. "Yes, you can."

"No, I can't," Leah tried again. "I can't go into a room of strangers and detail what happened to my parents. I can't."

"You won't have to do much," Emily promised. "And if you get uncomfortable, you can sit at my desk, okay? We need your help, Le. We do."

Leah found it somewhat frustrating when Emily appealed to her better character. "Promise?"

"I promise. I swear."

Leah shot her 'aunt' a look. "You guys are really desperate, aren't you?"

Emily sighed. She didn't lie to Leah and that was what had bonded them so tightly. Leah didn't like people who tried to coddle her. "I'm desperate," she said. "I don't think the team realizes how much is at stake here."

"Emotionally invested. Didn't you say that was a bad thing?"

"It is," Emily agreed. "Compartmentalizing-"

"Is what you do best, I know," Leah promised. "But you're not perfect."

Sometimes Emily forgot how nice it was to have someone to talk candidly with, even if she was a good half Emily's age. Leah was a little sister to Emily and had always been. There were honest things she told Leah about her reactions to cases that she wouldn't even confide in JJ or Derek. "Don't tell my team," Emily groused playfully, poking at Leah's side.

Leah squealed and jumped away as the elevator dinged on the ground floor. "Not fair."

"All's fair in love and war, sweetie," Emily quoted with a grin, pressing the button for the BAU. It was easy to be herself with Leah, if only because Leah knew her all too well. She enjoyed the moments of teasing before she'd have to sit by as Leah went through all of the gory details again for her friends and for her supervisior.

"Remind me who I'm meeting again?"

"Agent Hotchner," Emily answered, sensing the younger woman's discomfort. She reached out and took Leah's hand, squeezing reassuringly. "He's my superior."

"The Agent In Charge," Leah said slowly, nodding. "What's he like?"

"That's not fair," Emily said quietly. True, her opinion of her boss had changed in the last six months or so, but that didn't mean she didn't think he was a little too cold and aloof. She understood some of it. They all guarded personal parts of themselves with as much power as possible, but even the greatest walls had to give sometime.

"He's the one in the suit? In the picture?"

Emily could remember the picture Leah was referring to. It was one of her favourites, one of the entire team not a month before at some sort of retirement party or other Bureau extravaganza. They'd all actually done a spectacular job of looking happy. Even Reid, who hated pictures with a blinding passion.

"Yeah," Emily agreed.

Leah gave an exaggerated shiver. "He's terrifying."

"He's not that bad," Emily contradicted elbowing her young charge.

Leah arched an eyebrow at her 'aunt'.

Emily blew out a breath. "Maybe to people who are seeing him for the first time. It comes in handy."

The younger woman snorted out a laugh. "Scare the witnesses, I get it."

"Scare the _suspects_," Emily retorted, a low note of defensiveness in her voice. "Spencer Reid."

"The genius."

"Yes."

"And the socially awkward one."

"Leah!"

"What? I can tell by the picture."

Emily sighed. "Don't call him that, okay?"

"As if I would," Leah said with a roll of her eyes.

"Jennifer Jareau."

"JJ. The media lady."

"Yup. You probably won't meet her, but there's Penelope Garcia."

"The tech. The light in everyone's day."

Emily smiled at the description. She'd talked about her colleagues in her e-mails to Leah before so it wasn't a surprise that she could shoot the information back. "David Rossi."

"The legend."

"Hotch is a legend too."

"David Rossi's published books. I've read them."

"Leah! You're sixteen!"

"Exactly. And look at it this way, it's research."

"You're not doing this."

Leah was surprised by the adamant tone of Emily's voice. Emily had always been the one to encourage her to go for whatever she wanted. "I thought I could do whatever I wanted to."

"Le… You know what? We're going to talk about this later, okay?"

Leah knew Emily was under enough stress with the case coming back. She knew the feeling. The only difference was that Emily was going to have to be right in the middle of everything. And Leah only wanted to be. "We're missing one."

It took Emily a moment to go through her team members again. "Derek Morgan."

"Yummy."

A dark eyebrow arched.

"You're a red-blooded woman. You have to see how smokin' hot he is."

Emily smiled inwardly, glad to have diverted Leah's attention, at least for a second. But that second passed quickly when the elevator doors opened on the BAU floor. Emily felt Leah take her hand and hold on tight. Emily squeezed the sixteen-year-old's hand reassuringly. "This isn't the Spanish Inquisition," she said softly as they headed through the glass doors. "You _can_ do this."

It looked as if Derek was waiting for them. "Hey Em."

"Hey," she answered absently. Hotch was waving at her from his office, Dave already seated in front of his desk. "Derek, this is Leah."

The two shook hands. Derek glanced at Emily, raising his head at Hotch's office. Emily nodded. "You going to be okay here for a minute?" she asked her young charge. Leah looked so nervous when she turned her eyes back to Emily, she almost took her home right then and there. "Hotch wants to see me."

Leah nodded slowly.

"My desk," Emily said, waving at the surface. "And my laptop. Play solitaire, go online, whatever you want to do, okay?" She leaned over to kiss Leah's hair. "You'll be fine." Emily glanced at Derek who nodded. He'd watch Leah. It wasn't that they were afraid she was going to run, per se, but Leah's extreme discomfort was something that Emily most definitely did not like.

She made her way up the stairs with trepidation. There were two ways this little meeting could turn out. Either he'd take her off the case, questioning her objectivity – which would annoy her to no end – or he wanted her opinion on how to proceed with Leah. Her gut was telling her this wasn't going to end well. "Hotch?"

* * *

**_So, as per my deal with FotoBridget2, I posted. LOL. This keeps up I'm going to have to put Own on the sidelines for this one!_**

**_Review! You guys have been awesome about it so far!_**


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

--

"That's her?"

Emily nodded, glancing back out the door to where Derek was striking up a conversation with Leah. Reid watched, eyes wide. Emily smiled affectionately at the whole scene. "That's Leah. Or, Annabelle, depending on who you talk to, I guess."

"Annabelle is the WPP name?" Dave asked. He and Hotch had been deep in conversation not only about what to do about the interview with Leah but what to do with Emily. Dave was a huge believer in having her on the case. She already knew it like the back of her hand, so it made sense, especially since she'd seen the crime scenes. If there was anyone who would know the details of the case, it would be Emily.

Hotch had argued about her emotional investment in the case. From an FBI perspective, Dave understood where the younger man was coming from. Nevertheless, Dave liked to believe he knew Emily well. Even if she was emotionally invested in the case, he was sure she'd be able to put her subjectivity aside with the dangling carrot of ending the case in front of her. Though it had been an interesting look into Hotch himself. In fact, Dave would have probably sworn in a court of law that Hotch's concern about Emily's objectivity had nothing to do with the Bureau and more to do with his worry about her as a person. That was the juiciest tidbit of behavioural information Dave had probably ever seen.

"Annabelle White," Emily responded. "Adopted daughter of Elizabeth and David White."

'What about them?" Hotch asked.

"Bob said he'd keep an eye on them." Emily sighed. "I almost suggested protective custody."

"How is she?" Dave asked, nodding to the young woman in the other room. "Ready for this?"

"Would you be?" Emily answered wryly. "She knew why we needed her. She's a smart kid. I think she's always known it would come to this eventually."

"The BAU?" Hotch inquired. He wanted to make sure Emily would be able to handle the case without jeopardizing it.

Emily shook her head. "She knew the case would come back. Leah's perceptive, Hotch. She's read all of Dave's books."

Dave noticed how affectionate her smile was and how her attention was on Leah. It disturbed him a little bit, the sadness in her voice, the protectiveness in the way her arms wrapped around her stomach. Was he right in defending her ability to do this case? "What do you think?"

"About what?"

"Talking to her." Dave had always valued Emily's opinion. He'd grown to respect her over his time back with the Bureau and respect her immensely. She always seemed to have an alternate way of looking at the world.

"She's scared. She's nervous. I don't know if she's ready to talk to anyone about it, quite frankly," Emily said honestly. She'd almost deliberately pushed Hotch out of her mind. While they had opened up to each other more, this was a level of emotion she shared with no one. Dave had an uncanny ability of wheedling it out of her, but she'd never shared anything remotely like this with Hotch. So she kept her eyes on Dave.

"She has no idea what to expect. She doesn't know if he's going to find her. I can tell she's worried about me, about doing this case. She doesn't want anyone to get hurt because of her. I think she already knows that he's chasing _her_. I wouldn't be surprised if she already blames herself for the deaths that have happened. I'd hate to see her if she ever found out the sheer number of people he's killed to find her."

He looked back at her through the entire speech. "So?"

"I want to be there."

"You know that's a bad idea," Hotch said immediately.

Dave noticed the wrinkle in the other man's brow, but Emily's attention had turned back to Leah. It was an interesting expression for Hotch, a man that rarely showed emotion in the office.

"I know," Emily agreed. "I want to be there."

"No."

"Do you want her to talk?"

Dave almost winced. The one time she was going to be stubborn about something. "You don't think she'll talk to us?"

Emily knew she sounded juvenile and, more importantly, knew she was probably crossing a line, but the thought of Leah going through those details again by herself broke her heart. She'd spent the better part of eight years protecting her, watching over her from Chicago and then the BAU. The last thing she was willing to do was step back now. She shrugged. "It took her years to open up to David and Liz."

"We're _your_ colleagues," Dave pointed out. "You couldn't put in a good word for us?"

Hotch had never seen Emily's body crumple in on itself so fast. He tried to keep his expression neutral when all he wanted to do was reach out and reassure her, to take that pained look off of her face. And it wasn't the first time he'd felt that either. Since he'd opened up to her about Haley and Jack, he'd found himself drawn to her, found his eyes lingering on her just a little bit too long a little bit too often. It was disconcerting for him, to say the least. Then Dave had made him see that Emily didn't just tolerate him. She cared, and that was why she stayed late in the office when he did. It had become harder _not_ to pay attention to her, _not_ to react to her.

Emily's eyes were pleading when she turn them on both me. "I know it's against regulation to let me in there while you talk to her and I know you're worried about how truthful her answers will be with me in there… Hotch, I've been with her through everything in her life since she was eight. I _have_ to be in there." She didn't want to pull the questioning a minor card, but she would if she had to.

Hotch exchanged a look with Dave. They could use it to see how she was going to react, to see whether she was prepared to do this case while so emotionally involved. "Okay."

Relief was more than obvious in Emily's posture and facial expressions. "Where do you want her?"

"Conference room," Hotch answered, standing. "Let's go. I want wheels up in three hours."


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

--

Leah glanced up as Emily and her boss – bosses? – exited the office. Emily headed down the stairs towards her, but Leah's gaze remained on the two intimidating figures walking away from her. She almost jumped when Emily's hand settled on her head, stroking through her hair.

"Hey you," Emily greeted, soft affection in her voice. "You find something to do?" She hadn't been gone ten minutes, but Emily knew Leah. They were almost too much alike. Leah couldn't sit still when something was bothering her.

"Smart girl," Derek spoke up, answering the question. "Reminds me of you."

Leah blushed, taking it as one of the highest compliments before tilting her head back to look at Emily. "So?"

"They want to talk to you," Emily replied. "Now."

Leah's eyes held something akin to fear. "By myself?"

"Not by yourself," Emily reassured. "I'll be in there. You'll be fine."

Both young women made their way up the stairs, Leah still clutching Emily's hand like a small child. It wasn't often that Leah lost any of her nerve. The girl was one of the strongest young women Emily knew. You had to be to overcome violent crime like she had. Emily almost sighed as she looked at the picture Hotch and Dave made, sitting side-by-side on one side of the large mahogany table. Sometimes she wished their agent sides had a little bit more compassion for the victims.

"Leah," she said, deliberately using the name her parents had given her. "This is Agent Hotchner and Agent Rossi."

Leah waved nervously. "Hi." She took the seat Emily pulled out for her, some of the tension in her body relaxing when the brunette took a seat right next to her.

"We'd like to talk to you about what happened the night your family was killed."

And _this_ was why Emily wished she and JJ were doing the questioning. She respected both of the agents across the table and trusted them with her life – and with a chunk of her secrets, surprisingly – but when it came to questioning a young girl, a _child_ for all intents and purposes, they often came up a little bit short.

Leah, however, straightened her spine, reaching over to grasp Emily's hand. If she was going to do this, she wasn't going to cry. Emily's quiet strength was a massive reassurance.

"I was eight when it happened," she said. "The night itself was pretty normal. We'd come home from my brother's soccer game, a game he'd won, and pretty much went straight to bed. It was late and Sam and I had to go to school the next day. Mom and Dad tucked me in, and went downstairs. The next thing I remember, is waking up to pain and someone looming over me."

This was where it always got hard and her grip on Emily's hand tightened a little bit. "Um… I remember thinking about the other families. We always had the news on during dinner, so we'd heard about the other murders. But you never think it's going to happen to you and I guess… I guess I just sort of _knew_. He slit my wrists. All I could remember thinking was 'Please, let him go away'," She continued, her hand subconsciously moving to rub across the skin of her scars.

"I guess I passed out, because when I woke up again, it was to a really loud bang. I wasn't sure what was happening, but I could hear footsteps racing up the stairs, so I hid in the closet. And I stayed there, trying to fight against the pain and the dark and… _everything._"

Emily knew this part of the story and found herself closing her eyes and squeezing Leah's hand. This was the part where she came in. She'd found Leah in that closet as they searched the place. It had been a fluke that Leah's brother had arranged to be picked up early the next morning by a friend. When no one had come at the family's knock, they'd called police. The police had called them when they'd discovered the dead bodies.

"Do you remember anything distinctive about him?" Dave asked when Leah had finished her story. "Anything?"

Leah considered the question for a moment before shaking her head slowly. "It was dark. I was barely awake and in pain. I don't remember anything other than passing out."

_He wanted to watch them die_.

The thought raced through Emily's head at the same time she saw the spark light up in Dave's. She knew both of the men were thinking the same thing. He needed to watch them die, needed to control it. But he never tortured the children. Except Leah, who he'd inadvertently tortured for eight long years.

"Did he ever contact you? Even call, e-mail, a letter?" Hotch asked.

Leah looked up at the agents around her, the first time she'd made contact with any of them since she'd started telling her story. "Something's happened, hasn't it? Other than the other families. He's after me, isn't he?"

"Hey, hey," Emily said, interrupting to focus Leah's attention on her. The sixteen-year-old had almost started hyperventilating, tears leaking out of her eyes. Emily would let the questioning go on only as long as Leah was up for it. She didn't want to put the poor girl through much more. "You're going to be fine."

Hotch shot her a look that was blatantly ignored. He felt his stomach do a flip, though knew the evidence of it was carefully hidden. Emily didn't become the unpredictable agent.

"I promised you and I promised Bob that nothing would happen to you," Emily was saying softly. "I _promised_ him, Le. When was the last time you've known me to break a promise?"

"Never," Leah sniffled, her hand squeezing Emily's hard.

Emily ignored any discomfort. "I most certainly don't plan on breaking this one."

Leah nodded, her attention turning back to Hotch and Rossi. "He never contacted me. At least not directly. Not when I was in Seattle and not when I was in Chicago. If there's a letter, a note, anything, I've never seen it."

"No e-mail? Phone call?"

The pause was enough. Even Emily's hands tensed on Leah's. Leah knew she was caught and turned apologetically to Emily. "I'm sorry, Aunt Em."

"What happened?"

Leah's breath hitched as fresh tears pooled in her eyes. Still, she held surprisingly strong and took a deep breath. "It was the day I left. I logged onto my e-mail, the one I've been using for the last eight years and there it was. It didn't look like an advertisement…. It was addressed to me. Not Anabelle, Leah. That was when I knew."

"You didn't tell me."

Hotch could hear the tremor in Emily's voice that betrayed her anger. Leah, apparently, could not.

"I couldn't. You have enough with all of the people here and the cases you deal with…"

Emily glanced to the two men, wordlessly asking permission to continue the line of questioning. It was Rossi that gave a nod. The dynamic between them fascinated him. He'd take Hotch's wrath if it came.

"It was something I had to know, honey."

"I know that now," Leah promised.

"Did you send them to anyone?"

Leah shook her head. "I almost sent them to Agent Spring, but… the e-mail said not to contact anybody." The tears were back in full force now as the full extent of what was going on hit her. "He… He blamed me. Said that if I hadn't gotten away, he wouldn't need to kill so many people to get to me."

"What did he sent you?"

"Pictures, mostly. The first one told me not to notify anyone but…"

"Le, you've got to be specific, sweetie. Pictures of what?"

"Of dead people," Leah said, her voice a squeaky whisper. "Of dead people."


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

--

It didn't take Reid to see that the pictures he'd sent her had no doubt been of the bodies he'd killed since her family's brutal murder eight years before. This was exactly the thing Emily had been afraid of and she took Leah's hands. "Hey. Look at me."

Leah did, without having to be asked twice.

"It was not your fault." Emily said emphasizing each word. "What happened, those people he killed? He killed them because he _had_ _to_ and it wasn't because he had to get to you. You are a prize, a trophy at the end of a really long competition. Everything else is practice, okay?" She knew the words were harsh, bare, but Emily hadn't lied or sugar-coated for the eight-year-old, she wasn't about to do it simply because this was all coming back. Leah was no spring chicken and she most definitely wasn't stupid. Regardless of what Hotch or Dave said following this, she wasn't about to cushion Leah now.

"He's practicing?"

"I already promised he wouldn't get to you," Emily reminded the sixteen-year-old seriously. "He won't. But you need to know what's going on okay? You need to keep an eye out in case he manages to track you here."

"Do you think he will?" Leah asked fear in every line of her body, every lilting note of her voice.

"No," Hotch said strongly. "E-mail tells us he hasn't had a chance to actually find you, that he's tracked down the e-mail account you use, but not the name. You have a separate account you use to talk to Emily?"

The brunette tried not to jolt at her first name. As much as he'd been using it lately, he tended not to when they were facing a witness or a suspect.

"I do," Leah agreed nodding. "For this reason."

There was praise in Hotch's gaze as it was directed towards her, but only for a split second. Then it was back to the emotionless dark eyes.

"That's smart," Rossi said, voicing the praise Hotch wouldn't. "It means he can't track your friends or your family."

"But he can track Aunt Emily?" Leah asked in a panic. "Can he track Aunt Em from this?"

Emily knew the answer and both men could tell. It was a distinct possibility.

"It's not likely he will. If he has, he probably realizes that she's across the country and of no use to you. And he probably doesn't know she works at the FBI," Rossi explained. "Your Aunt Emily will be fine."

Emily sent him a dirty look as he stressed Leah's name for her.

"Your account was anonymous too?" Rossi asked innocently, covering his bases as much as deflecting her anger.

"Of course," Emily said, though her tone indicated that she took no offense to the question.

"Then I'm even more sure you're fine," Rossi nodded.

Hotch took control again. "Is that all you can tell us?"

Leah nodded, sniffling back the last of her tears. "I'm sorry."

"You've done well," Hotch praised, though his face didn't change. "Do you think you could meet with our technical analyst and pull up those e-mails?"

Leah nodded, wiping at the corners of her eyes. "Yeah."

Rossi nodded. "Good, thank you. I'll put in a call."

Emily and Leah followed him out, Emily intent on her young charge. "C'mon. I'll take you home."

Leah looked up at her, almost identical brown eyes shining. "Can I stay here just a bit longer? Agent Rossi's calling your techie, right? Wouldn't it be better if I was right here so I can pull up the e-mails?"

"She's right," Derek spoke up. They'd made it down the steps and within hearing range by the time Leah voiced her opinion. "It'll be easier for Garcia if she's here."

Leah flashed him a thankful smile as she sat down in Emily's chair. Emily sighed but nodded, heading over to the kitchenette in the corner for coffee. She was going to need it at this rate. She missed Derek following her.

"You okay?"

She was thankful she didn't jump. "Peachy."

Derek leaned a hip against the counter, observing his friend and colleague. Emily was family and he worried about her. This time even more so. "Come on, Em. You've gotta talk to someone."

"And you're offering an ear? Fantastic. Then what? You go talk to Hotch and tell him I'm too emotional to handle this?"

He blinked, not prepared for such a violent lashing out.

Emily sighed, setting down the carafe beside her cup and clenching the counter in front of her. "I'm sorry."

"You're emotional, I get it."

"I shouldn't be," she argued listlessly. "The one case that I think is oh so important and I can't get a handle on myself."

Derek looked at her seriously, eyes dark and penetrating. "Can you do this?"

Emily knew he was one of the teammates she trusted from the bottom of her heart, but that didn't mean it was any easier to expose her feelings like this. "I want to do this."

"That wasn't the question," Derek argued.

"No, but the answer to the question you asked…" She shrugged.

Derek understood what she didn't say. She wasn't sure she could handle the case without emotion but there was nothing she would allow to stop her from being there either. He knew Emily well and was pretty sure he had her pegged. "What are you going to do?"

Emily sighed. "Go to Seattle. Find him and catch him this time. I can't… I have to."

"Objectivity? Hotch?"

"Derek, what do I care? Leah is what matters."

"That's going to get you killed," Derek said. "And kicked off the case. You know you have to focus on this as another case, another unsub,"

"But it's not," Emily argued, dark eyes determined. "This is about a sixteen-year-old girl who lost _everything_ because of this bastard. I won't let him near her."

"I got it," Derek promised, and he did. "But then maybe you're better off here, where you can see her, stay with her, keep an eye on her. Seattle's across the country."

"And go stir crazy? I can't sit back and watch Derek. No this one, not this time."

Derek was still concerned. Very concerned. Emily compartmentalized and she had a poker face like stone. He'd never seen her express emotion during a case and couldn't remember the last time he'd seen emotions like the ones that were written across her face now. Leah hit more than a chord in her. This guy was almost an obsession.

"What are you going to do with her while you're gone?" Derek asked.

Emily finally got around to pouring that cup of coffee, trying to keep her hands busy. "She's old enough to stay by herself."

Derek handed her the cream, bumping the fridge shut with his hip. "Uh huh, so what are you going to do?"

"I don't know," she admitted on a sigh. "Protective custody?"

"Over-react much?"

"You said it yourself. I'm not leaving her alone," Emily pointed out. "But I can't say here knowing he's out there."

"And if Hotch says 'no'?"

Emily looked at him, eyes hard. "Then I'll find a way to do the case. Even if it's commercial."

Derek would believe it.

* * *

Dave wasn't sure what to think. On the one hand, Emily was a seasoned agent, one he would most definitely trust with his life in any situation. There were very few people he could say that about. So as He'd observed his colleague in the conference room and in Hotch's office, he'd been carefully watching her. Heck, since she'd mentioned knowing the case. She'd managed to stay stoic through the case details. She seemed comfortable with Leah and very much like a mother.

And that was what worried him. She was already emotionally attached to the case and with what they dealt with, compartmentalizing was one of Emily's best strengths and something they all relied on. It meant she was able to see things with a different perspective. It meant the world to the team. It meant the world to Hotch and Dave knew it.

It had surprised him to watch Hotch's relationship with Emily change. Emily's perspective was something Dave was sure they all took for granted but recently Hotch had been turning to her more and more. Dave had shrugged it off, originally chalked it up to Hotch realizing that Emily was more than a valued member of the team. Emily was the rock of the team, the foundation, the one that brought them all back from the brink of insanity with a word or a gesture.

Hotch seemed to take advantage of that more often than not. Dave had watched his younger colleague while they were interviewing together. Hotch's definite concern about Emily's objectivity was something that had startled Dave. He wasn't prepared for Hotch's definite reaction to Emily's emotions on the case. He seemed rattled and definitely concerned. It wasn't like Hotch to question objectivity, especially when it came to Emily.

But both men knew that this was going to be one of those cases that completely changed each and every one of them. What scared him was how Emily's behavior in Hotch's office and the conference room had seemed to deepen an almost miniscule wrinkle in between Hotch's eyes. Which was incredibly surprising. Hotch worried about his teammates, that much Dave knew, but the distinct questioning of Emily's objectivity before Leah arrived was what set him off.

He didn't knock as he stepped into Hotch's office. Dave rarely knocked when he was stepping into the office of his protégée. "So?"

Hotch looked up from the file, an eyebrow raised. "So what?"

"What do you make of this?" Dave questioned.

"The case?"

"That too."

There was a raised eyebrow in response. "What else?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about Hotch. Is Agent Prentiss coming to Seattle with us?"

"What do you think?"

Dave wanted to arch an eyebrow at the question. Even more, he wanted to ask about the lines that were forming around the edge of his mouth even before they'd even left Quantico. But if there was anyone Dave thought he could be honest with – other than Emily, who had discovered an array of things about him since they'd started working together – it was Hotch.

"I think she can handle it."

"Protocol says she stays in Quantico," Hotch answered, glancing down at the pages in front of her.

Dave scoffed. "I didn't ask about protocol, and screw protocol. If she's the one that knows this case I want her at my back."

"That's not the way it works, Dave."

Hotch's voice was calm, almost cold and yet Dave knew that it was one of his defense mechanisms, one of those things that he did to make sure that any emotion he was feeling wasn't shown to his teammates. "I don't care about how it works, Hotch. I care about who's going to have my back out there on the field. I care about who knows this case and if there's no one who knows it better than Prentiss, she should have the honour of being on the case."

"She's emotional, Dave. We can't have her on the case."

"You've been emotional before. We've all been emotional before."

"And if it ruins the case?"

"Oh come on!" Dave knew he was probably over-reacting. In fact, he was sure of it. But it hadn't been that long ago Emily and the rest of the team had followed him to Indianapolis on a twenty-year-old case. If this was something she needed to do, Dave would support her every step of the way. He took a deep breath. "Look, Hotch, this is Prentiss we're talking about. If there's anyone that can know the case and be objective about it it's her."

Hotch knew Dave made an excellent point. It was terrifying. He wanted her there, he did, but he also didn't want to have to send her home if something happened in Seattle. He couldn't have her compromising the case. Especially one that she was so anxious to see solved. "And if she compromises the case?"

Dave shot him a look. "I think we both know she won't."

"So she comes to Seattle."

The elder man nodded. "So she comes to Seattle."

* * *

**_Sometimes, with case-fics, I feel like I'm writing myself in circles. Unfortunate, really, but eh, what can you do? Let me know what you think, especially of Rossi and Hotch's conversation. Rossi can be so bloody hard to write..._**


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

--

Emily was actually shocked that she was allowed to board the jet. Dave had told her the news moments before Emily had passed Leah off to Penelope so they could pull up the e-mails. Unfortunately that meant Emily's brain was currently at a loss as to what to do with her sixteen-year-old charge. And they were now in flight. She jumped when a hand settle on her arm. She accepted the folder Hotch slid in front of her with a smile.

"What else can you tell us about the Chicago case?" he asked softly.

Emily's shoulders went up and down with her deep breath. "I'm not sure if there's anything I missed."

"When did you get the case?" Derek asked, trying to jump start her from the beginning. It was disconcerting that Emily seemed so off kilter.

"Um… after the third family. They were from Maine, for one, and Chicago PD thought we'd have better resources. By that time he'd killed fourteen people, eight of which were children."

Hotch exchanged a look with Dave over the pained look on the dark-haired woman's face. Maybe allowing her along wasn't such a good idea after all. "Did you?"

"So to speak. We had more manpower than they did, more experience with serial killers, but we were at the end of our ropes too. By the time Leah's family came around… And I wasn't trained in profiling at the time."

"Now you are," Dave said in encouragement. "What do you see?"

The team was silent as they searched through the files. The debrief had been taken up by Emily's account of finding Leah and then getting the girl there. They hadn't used much of the time on actually going over the case and trying to figure out what they wanted to do or start the preliminary profile.

"Why the suicide? Why make the kid look like they're killing themselves?" Derek asked suddenly, moving with his words.

Emily tapped out an erratic rhythm against the seat between her and Hotch. "Why the Scotts?" It was totally different not only to look at the case eight years later but to look at it after spending years with some of the smartest people in the country.

"What do you mean?" Dave asked.

"Well, every other family had older kids. Kids that were twelve, thirteen as the oldest. Leah was eight and the oldest of two. So why them? There can't be too many people that would believe and eight-year-old would kill their family," Emily tried to explain.

Hotch looked at the files and then around at his team. "We need as much as we can from the original Chicago files."

"I shipped them all to Bob when we transferred Leah. He's got a copy of them," Emily reassured. "I can put a call into the Chicago office to see if any of my teammates are still there."

Meanwhile, JJ had spread all of the family pictures over the table. "Well, it's not in looks," she said as her eyes darted over all of the pages. "Nothing about these families is alike. The 'suicide' victims are both boys and girls, there's nothing alike between the men and women when it comes down to looks."

"We didn't have a suspect list," Emily remembered. "We'd barely made the serial killer connection and that was only by MO. We couldn't find anything alike in the victims." Then, a smile touched her lips. "Then again, we didn't have Pen."

"According to autopsies, each family was killed in the same order," Reid said, pages in both of his hands. "Father first – probably because he was the biggest threat – then the mother – probably because she was there – then the children, almost youngest to oldest, though it's hard to tell about the children. Time of death was too close together. The oldest, obviously, is made to look like a suicide."

"Families were all different too. He targeted any number of kids, no uniform age for the oldest or youngest," JJ added, still looking through the family statistic. She barely looked up when the computer beeped.

Emily, on the other hand, started. Both Garcia and Leah's faces popped up on the screen. Emily smiled unconsciously at the girl. "Hey there."

"Hey Aunt Em." Leah sounded confused and Emily couldn't blame her. She hadn't had the opportunity to get in touch with Leah before boarding the plane.

"Alright, Justice League, here's what Mini-Prentiss and I found."

Both Emily and Leah blushed.

"The e-mails aren't family pictures, much to my own surprise. Each of them shows a frame of a young woman, probably in and around Miss Leah's age. Well, except the last e-mail. Those are definitely dead families."

Emily resisted the urge to wince, though the same couldn't be said for Leah, who did. It was a lot for the poor young girl to take, that much Emily was sure of. She vaguely wondered what Leah had bribed Garcia with to be in the same room for the call. Emily would bet tears were involved. "I thought she'd only been getting them for a couple of days."

"Oh she has," Garcia supplied, sending Leah a look that screamed 'I-told-you-so'. "What she neglected to mention was that there were multiple pictures in each of the e-mails. I'm in the process of backtracking the e-mails and bringing up the time stamps from the pictures, but I'd bet they were taken when the crime scenes were fresh."

"Why did he keep them so long?" Derek asked, his head elsewhere.

Emily watched Leah's face just above Garcia's left shoulder. If Derek was going where Emily thought he was going, Leah was much too young. No sixteen-year-old should be discussing murder, no matter what she may have seen or experienced. "Anything else, Pen?"

Garcia glanced at Leah over her shoulder. "The Chicago files were all transferred, including evidence, but they won't be arriving in Seattle's office for at least two days. I'm in the process of tracking down everything from this guy in between Chicago and Seattle and ID-ing the people in the single-victim pictures."

"Thanks Baby Girl," Derek said.

"I'll give you a call when I've got something," she promised. Then her eyes met Emily's. "You, Princess, I will call when I know the jet's touched down."

Emily smiled slightly, knowing exactly what Garcia wanted to talk to her about. "I'll call you."

"Whichever way you want, honey, but we're going to talk."

Leah waved cheerfully. "Bye Aunt Em!"

JJ couldn't help but smile as she glanced around. "Anyone else have a flashback to the Wizard of Oz?"

Emily slapped at her friend's arm.

* * *

Hotch had watched Emily through the flight and even more so when they hit the precinct. Her reunion with Bob Spring was professional and he found himself inexplicably happy that there was no overly-warm greeting. Then she stepped out to make a call. He just wasn't sure if it was to Leah or Garcia. Or both. He watched her though the window of the conference room and the glass doors of the bullpen between them. The pacing tipped him off. Leah. And it didn't look like it was going well.

"We've got Dave and Liz in protective custody," Bob said as he strode purposefully into the room. He took in the occupants and his brow wrinkled. "Where's Em?"

"Agent Prentiss is outside," Dave said, subtly correcting the man, much to Hotch's relief.

He shook himself internally at the thought. What did it matter if Bob Spring called her 'Em'? What difference did it make to him if Spring and Emily shared some sort of friendship? It was probably what had developed out of a mutual caring for what happened to Leah. His eyes drifted back to the raven-haired woman. She'd stopped pacing and was now leaning against the wall, cell phone in hand. She looked dejected.

He didn't have to make an excuse to the team as to where he was going. Not only did they support each other when times got tough, but Hotch rarely had to speak or justify leaving. On the contrary, he often up and left and came back minutes later with a coffee or water so no one questioned his sudden departure. Sometimes, he was thankful for habit because it meant no one was really paying attention when he took to the bullpen doors instead, moving until he stopped right in front of Emily. Her eyes were closed, head back against the wall, cell phone clutched tightly in her fist.

"Everything okay?"

Brown met brown as she looked up, slightly startled. But it was something else that ghosted through her eyes when she noticed how close he was standing. "Leah wants to come to Seattle."

"Of course she does," Hotch replied.

"I even told her that Bob was putting her parents in protective custody so she'd know they were safe. She still wants to be here, to help."

"Wouldn't you?"

Emily sighed. "Probably."

"This can't be easy for her, Emily," Hotch said, his tone logical, rational.

"I know," Emily agreed. "It's not helping that she doesn't have anyone. Her parents are in protective custody, I'm across the country…"

"Where is she staying?"

"With Pen," she answered candidly. "It's not the same."

She was getting emotional and that worried him, especially since they hadn't been in Seattle twelve hours yet. "Would you like to go back to Quantico?"

"No," she said immediately. "She's upset with me but…" She shrugged.

"Emily…"

"I can't go back." It was a rare glimpse of Emily's emotion on a case. "This is-"

"Too close," he said, reaching out and cupping her elbow. Touching had come slowly to both of them as their friendship developed but now, it was constant.

"I can do this without compromising the case," she said strongly, her eyes full of fire. She had to do this case without compromising it. The only thing Leah would hate more than not catching the guy would be catching the guy and letting him go on a technicality.

"I'm not talking about compromising the case," he said after a moment. "I'm talking about you."

Her eyes widened at the implication. They were friends, sure, but she didn't think they were close enough to actually express worry. And she wasn't aware they were close enough for his fingers to start rubbing the skin above her elbow softly. "I'm fine, Hotch."

He wanted to push, but managed to resist. "How's Leah?"

"She says she's fine."

Hotch arched an eyebrow. "You don't agree."

"What do you think?" she snapped in exasperation. Then she sighed. "I'm sorry."

"Stress is normal."

"Of course I don't agree with her. She's in a new city with no one and a serial killer trying to hunt her down."

His hand squeezed her elbow. "Go home, be with Leah." She often told him to spend time with Jack after tough cases and encouraged him to call his son when things got tough. He felt, in a way, it was his turn.

"No," she repeated. "This is too important."

He wanted to argue with her, really wanted to argue with her, but she was being stubborn. She wasn't in a position where she was willing to listen to any arguments. He didn't blame her. Gideon's Sarah, and Garcia's shooting were cases that had hit close to home and there hadn't been anything anybody could say or do to get him to back off. "You have the option."

Emily's smile was tight. "Thanks, Hotch."

He tugged on her elbow, the hand moving to her lower back as they started back towards the conference room. She still had one hand clenched around her phone which gave away the turmoil she was still feeling. Hotch took a deep breath, vowing to himself to catch this guy and soon. If only for Emily's sake.


	10. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

--

"Miss Garcia? Do you have a spare towel?"

"Yeah honey, hang on a second."

Penelope pushed herself up from the couch, padding to the linen closet. She had to admit, she most definitely hadn't expected a house guest, but she knew Emily was uncomfortable leaving Leah by herself. When the blond had seen the pictures in the young woman's e-mail, she understood Emily's worry. So when Emily had asked if she'd keep an eye on Leah while they finished up the case, Pen didn't think about any danger or anything other than her friend and the sixteen-year-old currently finishing up a shower in her bathroom.

She knocked on the door, passing the terry cloth through the crack. "Any particular movie choice?"

"Um… Mindless?" Leah called back. "I'm really not in the mood for anything action adventure."

It went without saying that horror was out. Pen could sympathize. She hadn't been able to handle any movie where someone pulled a gun for almost a month and a half after her shooting even with Derek sitting next to her. "Mindless it is. Romantic comedy."

Leah's head poked out of the door. "Oooh, _Sydney White_?"

"We can do that," Pen said with a laugh. She should have known Leah would have a movie in mind. Emily often did the same thing.

Pen moved back to the couch, checking her laptop in the process. Usually, she wouldn't bring work home with her. Her insomniac tendencies would keep her up while the cross referencing of all of the victim's names finished. This time, however, she had a young charge, who probably wouldn't take well to the cramp in her neck should she catch her sleep on a desk. Emily probably wouldn't be impressed either and Pen both knew and understood Emily's worries. So, for the first time in a long time, she logged on from home to continue the work she'd started. And so far the search had come up empty.

"Movie in?"Leah asked, coming out of the bathroom towel drying her hair.

"Not yet." The blond watched the young girl as she searched the DVDs. Leah hadn't stopped moving since Emily had left. The only emotion Pen had seen was when she'd been on the phone with her 'aunt' talking about where she was going to stay. It had taken Emily twenty minutes to both calm her down and convince her that leaving Quanitco-slash-Washington for Seattle was a bad idea. Leah had curled herself in a corner for half an hour before demanding to help, but unfortunately for her, there wasn't much she could do.

"Talked to Aunt Em?"

It was the twelfth time Leah had asked.

"Nope. Want to call?"

It was the same answer Pen had given each time.

"I don't want to bother her."

They'd been dancing this particular dance all day and Pen sighed. "You know, I doubt our girl is going to be bothered by it sweetheart." She held out the phone. "Call her. You'll probably help."

That was enough for Leah to almost snatch the phone from Pen's hand. She dialed the number without having to look and started pacing the minute she pressed the phone to her ear.

_"Agent Prentiss."_

"Am I interrupting, Aunt Em?"

_"Hey, sweetie, no, of course not. Just hang on a half a second, okay?"_

Leah took a deep breath as she heard Emily leave voices fading in the background.

_"Okay. How are you doing?"_

"Are you sure I'm not interrupting? I can wait, if you want to call back."

_"No, no, honey," _Emily reassured. _"Now's fine. You didn't answer my question."_

Leah sighed, smiling at Pen as the older woman left the room. "I wish I was there."

Emily sighed. _"I know, Lee, but we talked about this. You're safer in Virginia."_

"But Aunt Em-"

_"No arguing,"_ Emily interrupted, though her voice was gentle. _"You need to stay safe. I promised Liz and David you'd be safe. I swore to Agent Spring you'd stay across the country._"

"I want to be with you." She hated how she sounded like she was six and not sixteen. This whole situation had her so terribly off kilter. All she wanted right now was to curl up in Emily's arms and cry like a child. But Emily was on the opposite coast. Emily was the one constant in her life since _he_ had taken it from her and though she loved Liz and treated her like a parent, it was Emily she inevitably turned to when times got rough. Leah didn't think they could get rougher than this.

_"I know you do, sweetheart, but this really isn't a good place for you."_

"Why did he have to come back and ruin everything," Leah asked rhetorically, her voice hitching. She could feel tears pool in her eyes again and cursed herself. She'd sworn she'd be strong the last time she was on the phone with Emily, vowed to herself that she wouldn't cry anymore. "I'm scared."

_"I know."_

"I don't know what to do."

"_I know," _Emily repeated. _"We need you to hang in there." _There was a pause. _"Has Pen found anything?"_

"I don't know," Leah admitted. "She won't let me look at the laptop."

_"Laptop? Where are you?"_

"Miss Garcia's apartment," Leah replied.

Emily actually laughed on the other end of the phone. _"Wow. Leave it to you to get the insomniac out of the office."_

"Aren't you an insomniac?"

_"Something like that,"_ Emily agreed with a small chuckle. _"Le, you need to hang in there, okay? We're going to find him."_

Leah's breath was shaky as she inhaled. "I know."

_"I'll be back before you know it,"_ Emily promised. "_And I'll take a week off and we'll head around DC okay? Wherever you want to go."_

"I want to go to Mexico," Leah said on a sigh.

Emily chuckled. "_Maybe some other time. Oh, hang on a sec."_

Leah heard soft voices on the other end of the phone. Someone was talking to Emily, a male by the sounds of it. She wondered if it was Mr Hotch. He'd seemed to keep a close eye on her Aunt Em. And she was right, he wasn't as scary as she'd thought.

_"Can you do me a favour, sweetheart?"_

"Is it going to help with the case?"

_"It is. We're going to go by your school tomorrow, make sure no one saw anything odd. Can you give me your friends' names and your teachers?"_

"Uh… Well, there's Dani, that's short for Danielle, uh… Danielle Hunter. She's my best friend."

"_Right, the one you mention in your e-mails."_

"Yeah. And there's Cait Short and Justin Farr. That's my close group of friends."

_"What about boyfriends?"_

Leah blew out a breath. "You know there's no one." Still, she knew how this worked. Any detail was key. It was what Emily had said before she'd left. "Jamie Caddy's been hanging around my locker lately and Geoffery Losh. He's a transfer student from England. He sits beside me in English."

"_How ironic."_

It got the laugh out of Leah she was sure her aunt was looking for. "I can e-mail you my class schedule so you don't have to go through the secretary. She keeps up to date on all of the latest privacy laws. I don't think Agent Spring could even get through to her."

"_That would be a huge help."_

There was a pause and Leah knew what was coming next. "You have to go."

_"I do,"_ Emily agreed. _"We're going to do our dinner briefing and then probably see about some shut eye. It's not going to do any of us any good to be exhausted while doing this."_

"Um… You'll call tomorrow?"

_"First thing,"_ Emily promised.

Leah knew she'd make good on it. Emily hadn't made a promise she hadn't been able to keep. "Goodnight Aunt Em. Love you."

"_I love you too, Leah_."

Leah hung up, a smile touching the corners of her mouth. Emily had never let her forget who she had been and Leah would probably credit the older woman for who Annabelle was too. Emily had reassured her on a constant basis that Leah still lived inside her and she could be Leah as well as Annabelle. And Leah had every confidence Emily could find the guy who was responsible for the death of her biological parents.

She just hoped it was before too many more people were killed.


	11. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

--

"Everything okay?"

Emily looked up at Hotch, not realizing everyone had already left. They'd just finished breakfast at a diner near the Seattle field office, Bob Spring and his partner in tow. They'd been lucky enough to not have a new family of victims while they were off duty, but it almost made Emily more nervous. It had been four days now since he'd killed. "Fine."

Hotch knew better, but he also knew better than to push her. "Talk to Leah this morning?"

"Yeah. She says Pen's going to take her into the office again today."

"Her office?"

"I guess so," Emily said. "I have a feeling she all but bullied Pen into it. When Leah has her mind set on something it can be difficult to say no."

Hotch nodded struck with the idea that Emily would make a fantastic mother to some lucky kid. Then he shook himself. These stray thoughts about her were coming more and more frequently as were his observations of her. He'd noticed how nicely red complimented her complexion that morning when she'd come into the hotel lobby to meet the team. He was also very aware of how quiet she'd been. Still, he wasn't exactly sure how far he could push her before she exploded. "Do you have the list of names?"

Emily pulled the small sheet of notepaper from her back pocket. On it, were the names Leah had given her the night before, the names of all of her friends at school. Emily was sure that from her friends they could figure out who her enemies were.

Hotch took the list, scanning the short list of names. "She doesn't have many friends."

"Many _close_ friends," Emily corrected subtly as she gulped down the last little bit of coffee. "She was always paranoid that if he found her, he would have leverage." She stood, following him out of the diner. He held the door for her as she pulled out her ringing phone. Her forehead wrinkled as she placed the caller ID. "Leah."

_"Irony of ironies, guess what Miss Garcia just found?"_

"Good Lord, Leah, don't scare me like that."

"_Sorry."_ She didn't sound apologetic. Maybe worried and a little confused, but definitely not apologetic. _"My school called the police today."_

"Oh?" That certainly had Emily's eyebrows raising. She pulled open the passenger's side of the SUV at the same time Hotch pulled open the driver's side. "And?"

_"Well, they've filed a missing persons."_

"I'm sorry?" Emily asked.

_"My English teacher filed a missing persons. This is the fourth day I've been gone, you know."_

Emily blew out a breath. "Okay. Thanks Le."

"_That's it? My picture is going to be all over the news."_

"No it won't, honey. Let us handle this. JJ's the best at what she does."

_"Miss Jareau, the nice blond one, right?"_

"Right. That's her job, okay? Plus, maybe it's better you're listed as a missing person."

_"Why? He'll just leave Seattle and try and find me again."_

"That is a possibility," Emily allowed. "Or he'll get angry that you know."

_"He wants me to know. Isn't that the whole point of the e-mails?"_

"Leah Scott what kind of books have you been reading?"

_"I told you. I've read all of Mr Rossi's books. Right now he still thinks I'm in Seattle. Hopefully."_

Emily didn't echo the 'hopefully'. They had to rely on the fact that he still thought she was in Seattle. Leah could be very right. Knowing she was missing could set him off, make him move cities. "There's nothing to say you haven't left Seattle, honey. I'm sure he still thinks you're here."

_"Still."_

"I'll get JJ on it," Emily promised. She paused. "How did Pen find out?"

_"Uh… well… she um… I've never Googled my name… Um…"_

Emily laughed as she said goodbye and hung up. She turned to Hotch, shaking her head.

"Everything okay?" he asked, glancing over at her. He took comfort in the smile that flashed across her face.

"The school filed a missing persons for Annabelle White."

"Leah's WPP name."

"Exactly."

"And she's worried."

"You know, this statement-not-question thing gets a little irritating," she groused. It spoke to the comfort both agents had developed with each other. "Just ask."

A smile played at the corners of his mouth. "What does Leah think?"

"She thinks it puts our investigation in jeopardy," Emily answered with a sigh. It had been amusing to talk about with Leah, but now that she took the time to analyze and think about it all, Leah made an excellent point. "What if our unsub catches wind of it and moves again to hunt her down?"

"Call JJ, get her on it. Tell her we need the missing persons before it even gets filed," Hotch suggested. It wouldn't be his normal course of protocol, but Emily did seem disturbed by the thought.

Emily was already flipping open her phone.

* * *

Danielle Hunter was tall but slight with long blond curly hair that cascaded down over her shoulders. She looked concerned as she took a seat in front of Emily and Hotch in the principal's office of Franklin High School. "Is this about Bella?"

"You were the one that told Mrs Long Bella was missing, right?" Emily asked gently.

"Bella doesn't miss school, ma'am," Danielle said. "Ever. I've known her since she moved here. She came to eighth grade with the flu once."

"So you got worried."

Danielle nodded at Hotch earnestly. "Of course I did."

"Has anyone been bothering Bella recently? Anything you thought was weird?" Emily asked.

"No more than usual," Danielle replied. "I guess the boys have been paying more attention."

Emily nodded encouragingly. "Anyone in particular?"

"No one that Bella didn't flirt with too," the sixteen-year-old answered. "Jamie's been hanging around. He plays on the boys soccer team and they practice when Bella and the girls' team does."

"Bella plays soccer?" Hotch asked, glancing at Emily.

"Really well," Danielle replied enthusiastically. "I don't know why she didn't try out earlier."

_Because she was afraid of the crazy murderer potentially stalking her,_ Emily thought to herself.

"Anyone else?" Hotch inquired, making a mental note to make sure they talked to the soccer coach.

"Boys you mean? Bella talked about another guy in her English class, but she wouldn't tell me his name or anything like that."

"Why not?" Emily asked, more out of curiosity than for the case. Leah hadn't seemed all that averse to sharing Geoffery Losh's name over the phone.

"I don't know," Danielle admitted. "She was just very tight lipped about him."

"So you don't know his name?"

Danielle shook her head. "I'm sorry."

--

"She didn't talk about him and Dani, Cait and I were her best friends." Justin Farr was a tall, skinny brunette with wire-rimmed glasses and a pimply face, the quintessential teenager. He seemed nice enough from what Emily had seen. She could how Leah had found a friend in the young man.

"It was one thing that she _never_ talked about. Well, not the only thing. Bella didn't talk about her life before she moved to Seattle."

That didn't surprise either agent. It was policy.

"There was an aunt she talked about all the time," Justin offered. "She wouldn't tell us much about her either though, just that they didn't see each other. Actually, the aunt was the only family member she still talked to from her life before Seattle."

Emily knew her cheeks were growing red and she kept her head down to make sure Justin didn't see it.

"Was there anything that seemed 'off' about Annabelle in the days leading up to her disappearance?" Hotch asked, glancing at Emily's pink cheeks. It was a rather attractive blush.

"She seemed normal to me," Justin offered regretfully. "She did her homework, went to practice…"

--

"She was – is – a really nice girl," Cait Short said. "She didn't make enemies."

"None?" Emily asked.

"Not at school. She kept her head down, though she was really really nice. She was the one who introduced me to Dani and Justin. The only time she wasn't 'nice' was when she was on the soccer field. And I really appreciated it. I'm shy…"

_And you ramble when you're nervous_, Emily thought. A lot of kids did, especially ones that walked in without being able to look at the agents. Emily would bet her pay check that the call down to the principal's office had absolutely terrified the girl.

"Justin and Danielle said there was another guy…"

"Oh, she just said he was in her English class, but I'm not sure Bella would have gone for that. She's too busy for a guy."

"What about her teachers and her coach? Any of them show a keen interest in her?" Hotch asked. They'd agreed to treat the case like a missing persons when they'd entered the school.

"Uh… She never had any problems with any teachers and I don't think anyone paid any closer attention to her than anyone else."

"What about her coach?"

"He's a new transfer," Cait offered. "I think Bella likes him. She seemed to recognize him, actually." The girl's brow knit in confusion. "The first time he saw her, he called her Leah."

* * *

_**Hey, remember, the case isn't finished yet, so don't go getting in your head that it's definitely the soccer coach. Think of this as the half-way point of the show where they think they have the guy... Maybe it is, maybe it isn't!**_

_**Sorry. Caffiene and sugar. Interesting yet volatile mix.**_

_**Review!!**_


	12. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

--

Hotch had pretty much kicked the poor girl out after that and closed the door before the principal could check on them. Emily had frozen at Cait's words and Hotch couldn't blame her. It had, surprisingly, shocked his system too. The United States was a very large country.

His hand alighted on Emily's back, absently rubbing over the soft silk of her blouse. She'd discarded her suit jacket earlier in the day exposing the red shirt she wore underneath. He'd almost swallowed his tongue. Then he'd almost pinched himself for the unprofessional thoughts. They were on a case, for goodness sakes and a case where she was already emotionally vulnerable. The last thing she needed was for him to add any pressure.

His hand continued down her arm as he hit Garcia's speed dial."

"Oh the irony, I was about to call you, Superman."

Hotch felt his lips twitch involuntarily. A lot had changed since he'd started spending time with the team. "What have you got?"

"A name."

"It wouldn't happen to be the name of the school's soccer coach, would it?"

"A janitor, actually," Garcia responded. "Don Hackney."

"Connection?"

"Just one. But it's big."

"And?"

"Well, there's a little bit of back story, sir. I went back over the pictures isolating the time stamps of when they were taken and took the liberty of matching them to murder cases across the country. First, there is a pattern there, right across the country from Chicago to Seattle. It gave me a rough timeline and before you ask, JJ's compiling all of the information back at the field office as we speak."

"Go on."

"I added all of the new information into my search parameters. The only name or connection between any or all of the victims was this guy. A couple of peeping Tom charges, says he's been arrested for attempted rape a few times but the charges never stuck… He's worked at every school, in every city connected to this case."

"Where is he now?" Hotch asked.

"Last known is a Seattle address. He works at Franklin High."

Hotch closed his eyes briefly. In his line of work, one simply couldn't believe in coincidences and the likelihood of two coincidences? Well, that was just unheard of. Emily's reaction to the fact that the coach had called Leah by her given name still had him a little shaken. "Get everything you can on…" he checked Emily's notes, "Tim Sivill. He's the soccer coach at Leah's high school."

"Sure thing, Boss," the tech responded cheerfully. "Over and out."

Hotch took a seat beside his still silent colleague. "Emily?"

Her eyes were hauntingly dark when they met his. "We interviewed Sivill in Chicago. He was the coach there too."

"Why? Leah was only eight?"

"The Scotts had a regular babysitter, a girl that lived behind them. She walked Leah and her brother home from school every day and stayed until the parents got home," Emily answered. "Could have been her sister actually and their families were old friends. Lindsay would walk across the Scotts' backyard to get to her house. If I remember right, she'd been at the soccer game the night the Scotts were killed."

"That's a lot to remember after eight years," Hotch said, his fingers unconsciously weaving with hers.

Emily sighed. "This was one of those cases – is one of those cases," she tried to explain. "It stuck with me. Sometimes it just takes a trigger to remember some of the details."

"What was your impression of him?"

"I didn't like him," she admitted, "But we didn't have anything to tie him to the crimes. You can't arrest someone on being creepy anymore."

He let out an exaggerated sigh. "And here that was my favourite part of the profile."

Emily's mouth curved upwards. "Ah, that illusive sense of humour."

He chuckled. "What do you want to do?" he asked, his thumb stroking over the soft skin of her knuckles. "Derek and Dave can handle the staff interviews if you'd like."

She opened her mouth to argue, then seemed to think better of it. "We're going to be better off talking to the teachers when school lets out."

He pulled her up then, grabbing her jacket off of the back of the chair in the process. He wasn't about to give her time to change her mind and he knew it was the closest thing to an admission of weakness he was going to get. This was wearing her down and the lack of leads was probably bothering her much more than she was willing to let on.

He made sure Emily walked just that little bit ahead of him, close enough that he could still brush her shoulder with his and definitely close enough that his hand could rest on her back, palm flat against the warm silk at the bottom of her spine. He watched her run a hand through her hair in exasperation.

"Em?"

She looked at him and he knew she was trying to hide everything inside and he _hated_ that she was bottling up everything that was bothering her. "Sorry," she said.

He waited until they were in the car and buckled in before turning to her. "Talk to me."

"There's nothing to say," she said, not facing him. Her eyes were out the window.

He left her looking out the window as he pulled out of the school parking lot and started along the route back to the field office. He wanted to push her, wanted to all but force her to tell him what was going on in hear head. He wanted to make sure she was okay, to keep her away from the pain she was so obviously experiencing even as she tried to hide it.

He caught her elbow before she made it into the field office, his concern jumping another notch when she started. "I want you to take a few hours," he said, tone telling her it should be useless to argue. "Go to lunch with JJ, talk baby, just take a step away from the case."

"I can do this," she said, almost rolling her eyes.

"Emily." His tone was warning now. "I'll send you back to Quantico." He'd known it was the wrong thing to say, empty threat or not, when her eyes blazed fire.

"I wasn't aware I was jeopardizing the case, _sir_."

"You're jeopardizing _yourself_," he told her frankly.

"You wouldn't be so worried if it was Derek or Dave," she accused. "I don't need to be coddled."

Hotch took a deep breath, trying to reign in his emotions. This wasn't what he'd hoped would be her reaction, nor did he appreciate his own seemingly over-protective reaction. He'd fully intended to treat her as he would any other agent and he'd sworn he would. Then he'd experienced the last three days with her. Then he'd seen Emily with Leah, watched how she reacted to the news that there were potentially two other people in Seattle that knew Leah's true identity. She'd managed to spawn protective instincts that had lain dormant and buried since his divorce from Haley. He actually probably worried more about her than he did his ex-wife and that was something scary to think about.

"I don't mean to coddle," he said, making sure his eyes met, and held hers.

"You are," she said sharply, the tone bordering on insubordinate.

He knew it was probably the irritation of stress that had her snapping at him. That didn't mean he was fully willing to just let it slide. "Prentiss."

The sharp tone made her straighten. "Sir."

"You wouldn't be here if I thought you couldn't handle this," he reminded her, "And the moment you can't you will be spending your days sitting beside JJ in the field office until the end of the case."

Emily blinked.

"Go with JJ and get some lunch," he repeated, eyes softening, hand tightening.

She turned on her heel and stalked into the precinct.

* * *

"Did you have a lover's quarrel?" Dave asked, eyeing Hotch over the papers. Derek and Reid had gone to pick up the janitor before heading back to talk to the teachers.

Hotch raised an eyebrow. "I beg your pardon?"

"Emily seemed a little less than impressed when she left with JJ," Dave replied, focusing his gaze on the papers in front of her.

"Professional miscommunication," Hotch answered vaguely.

"Oh?" Dave said, his tone implying he knew there was more to it than that. He'd been watching his colleague watch Agent Prentiss and watched the way he younger man's friendship seemed to progress into watching the pretty dark-haired agent with a different sort of look in his eyes.

"Dave, what do you want me to say?" He had an idea of where Dave was going with his particular line of questioning and he wasn't sure he'd come to enough of a conclusion about what was going on in his own mind.

"I'm just asking how long you've been looking at Emily like she's the center of your world."

Hotch's hand froze for a split second and he almost kicked himself. "There's nothing between me and Emily."

"But she is 'Emily'," Dave pointed out.

"Just like there's JJ and Derek," Hotch replied nonchalantly.

"You don't send either of them away from a case that gets too tough," Dave pointed out. "You don't hover over them either."

"What are you getting at?" Hotch was getting impatient with Dave's probing.

"Whatever is going on between you and Emily…" he paused, tilting his head slightly. "It's a good thing."

Hotch didn't know what to say to that.


	13. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

--

Emily wasn't eating, she was picking and it was driving JJ, a woman well into eating for two and eating whatever Baby wanted, absolutely insane.

"Stop shoving food around to make it look like you're eating. It's useless. I'd rather you tell me what's going on and why you're moping about. It's scaring Reid to see the unflappable Emily Prentiss rattled."

That got a smile out of the brunette, albeit a small one.

JJ reached across the table to grasp and squeeze her friend's hand. "Come on, Em. We've got the janitor coming in already and we've got enough to connect him to all of the murders."

"I know," Emily replied. "I just… it's not him, Jayje."

The blond raised an eyebrow. "Why not?"

"What this guy's doing… it's rage. I mean, I know it's too big of a coincidence for him _not_ to be a suspect but… my gut says it's not him."

"Janitors aren't generally connected to the student body," JJ allowed, probably belittling the job a bit. "And its way too big of a coincidence to have Tim Sivill and Don Hackney migrating to the same school-"

"Where, coincidentally, Leah happens to be attending." She paused. "But Em…"

"I know. Criminal record, time, evidence shows he's been at every school…"

"You can't argue with evidence," JJ said sympathetically.

Emily sighed. "Maybe. Hotch is right."

"About what?" JJ asked, picking at Emily's fries.

"Maybe I should head back to Quantico. I can't keep my head on straight."

"You're not jumping at the chance to arrest a guy. Heck, Em, you don't even think the guy did it."

"I'm not helping either," Emily said. "I'm worrying about Leah reacting to the smallest thing… We came back to the field office because I froze when Cait Short said the Tim Sivill had called Leah by her given name the first time he saw her in Seattle."

"You're human," JJ said almost desperately. "Even Hotch has bad cases." She really wanted Emily to stay.

"Leah's in Quantico by herself."

"And what about the case?" JJ had never known Emily to give up and never changed her mind once she started something. This one-eighty over her presence and participation in the case was more than worrisome.

"Who better to entrust this case to than family?"

JJ sighed. "Can you just… think about it a little longer?"

Emily smiled, understanding JJ's vulnerability. They'd been sharing a room since the news of JJ's pregnancy and Emily had taken on a much more matronly role since them too. She knew she was basically JJ's security blanket on away cases. "I'll think about it."

"Good," JJ said, seemingly satisfied for the time being. "Let's get back?"

"Yeah," Emily agreed, folding her napkin into the garbage on her plate. She stood, turned and ran right into someone.

"I'm so sorry I didn't see…"

"It's okay," Emily apologized with a slight smile, her mind focused on nothing but getting back to the case and finding out who was going after Leah. She didn't even register the man's face, nor the gentle smile JJ gave the man.

Both women missed the man clutching Emily's cell phone.

* * *

Leah was bored. Miss Garcia had allowed her an FBI issue laptop but there was only so much, even on the internet, that could occupy her. She was twisting in Emil's chair, her head back, eyes focused on a single spot in the ceiling. She actually sighed when the phone rang. Her face brightened marginally when her cell rang and it was Emily's number on the phone.

"Hey Aunt Em.

_"I don't think I'm Agent Prentiss."_

"Who is this?" Even as she asked, her blood had run cold.

_"Come on, Leah, I know you remember me. I've been looking eight years for you."_

Leah stopped moving, stopped blinking and stopped breathing. "Who are you?" she managed to squeak.

_"You know, this could all end with you, Leah. This is all because of you. I hunt because of you. The girls I killed… The families I hunt…None of you understand that its all for you, all for the children."_

"What are you talking about?" Leah pulled the phone away from her ear, double checking the number. "And where's my aunt?"

_"Mmm, pretty lady. Your aunt's fine. For now."_

"You let her go this instant-"

_"Ah, ah, ah, Miss Scott. I'd be careful what you say."_

She was almost sure she outright whimpered. She _knew_ this would happen. "Don't hurt her." She blinked back tears.

_"I'll give her back all safe and sound," he cooed. "All you have to do is come to me."_

She took a shaky breath. "Where?"

_"Your parents' house."_

"In Chicago?"

_"In Seattle. In an hour."_

"That's impossible. I'm across the country." She was almost sobbing out the words.

He let out a growl. _"You have twelve hours. Let yourself into the house and wait. Oh, and Leah, don't tell anyone."_

* * *

Emily was starting to get frantic. She couldn't find her cell phone anywhere. "JJ have you seen my phone?"

"Did you have it at lunch?" the blond asked calmly.

"Yeah," Emily sighed. "I'm sure I did."

"Agent Prentiss?"

Emily looked up at the rookie standing in the doorway and let out a breath of relief when she noticed her phone in his hand. "Where was it?"

"Someone dropped it off at the front desk."

The brunette smiled her thanks and started checking for a call from Leah. What she got shocked her even more.

* * *

Penelope had absolutely upended Timothy Sivill's squeaky clean existence. The man hadn't so much as a speeding or parking ticket. Everything she'd gathered praised the man for his work in school athletics and community soccer. Still, something had to be off or Hotch wouldn't have asked her to look into the man to begin with. Penelope sighed. Maybe Leah would have a better idea of what they were looking for. After all, Penelope had noticed that the man had worked at schools in both Chicago and Seattle.

She pushed herself up and left her bunker, walking with purpose to the bullpen. Her heart started to beat frantically in her chest when she noticed that the young woman was nowhere to be found. Panic took hold and she raced back into her office just as her phone started ringing. "Emily?"

"Where's Leah?"

"I was just about to call you about that."

"Where is she Pen?"

Penelope sighed, guilt flooding her. "I don't know."

* * *

**_I know it's a short chapter, and I know I'm the devil incarnate for leaving you hanging, but it almost screamed to be left off here. And who am I to argue with a story? Especially one I'm actually hoping to finish instead of extending it into over 70 chapters. Patience is, as always, well appreciated, especially with Hotch and Emily. It's coming, slowly, but it's coming!_**


	14. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

--

Panic flooded her, had her blood pumping fast enough to make her lightheaded. She wasn't fully aware of what was going on around her. When Penelope had told her Leah was missing, JJ had taken the phone from her hands. Emily had dropped numbly to her chair. She knew JJ had stayed close to her side, could vaguely hear her melodic voice, but the agents that came and went, didn't even register.

"Emily?"

She felt warmth settle on her thighs, felt it creep up to cradle her hands and forced herself to focus on Hotch's dark, worried eyes.

"We're going to find her, sweetheart," he tried, squeezing her hand, unaware that the endearment had slipped out.

"Where could she go?" Emily asked, cursing the way her voice cracked with tears. She could feel herself starting to tremble, feeling the increased emotions racing through her.

"They sent the phone to evidence," he tried to reassure her. "We _will_ find her." This was torture. The pain and tears of the usually stoic woman made his heart clench.

"How?" she croaked.

"Garcia's got feelers out at every airport. They're looking for her at every possible point to get into Seattle."

"What if he went to Washington?"

"Honey, he's comfortable here, not in Virginia," he reminded her. "He's not going to go and get her."

"What made her listen? What kept her on the phone for ten minutes?"

"It could have been anything. He could have told her he had you. He did call from your phone."

"Leah's so smart-"

"And emotional." Before he was aware of what he was doing, he'd pulled her up and against him, wrapping his arms around her, pressing her forehead to his shoulder. What surprised him was the way her hands went under his suit jacket to fist in his dress shirt at the base of his spine. She was shaking against him and his hand splayed across her back as wide as he could make it. He kissed her hair absently, trying to convey his support.

Emily took a shaky breath before pulling back. "I'll keep trying her phone."

Still, her hands stayed clenched in his shirt. He wanted to tell her to keep trying Leah from the hotel, but he wanted to keep her in his sight. "I'm sure we'll find her first."

"We _have_ to," she replied, finally managing to unclench her hands. "We've kept her alive too long to lose her now." She went to her pocket and sighed. "Can I use your phone?"

He handed over the device without question.

Derek poked his head in, face completely stone. "Garcia's on the line. She's got JJ's search results. We might have found her."

* * *

Emily's heart was in her throat as she sat in a chair, the speakerphone on the table in front of her. She could feel Hotch were he stood behind her chair, hands clenched on it's back, his fingers brushing the back of her neck and her shoulders as she shifted.

"She's flying to Seattle. Probably because it's the quickest way there," Garcia said, knowing how grave the situation was. She felt guilty for letting the girl escape, letting her out of her sight for one minute. "She booked a ticket about twenty minutes ago on the next flight out."

"When does the flight leave?" Hotch asked.

"Two hours. There's something else."

"Tell me it's good news, Baby Girl," Derek all but begged. He wasn't sure his best friend could deal with another blow of bad news right now.

"I've been trying to find the IP address of the e-mailer of those pictures," Garcia replied, her voice still serious. "It traces back to the school, but that's as far as I can get it."

"And Tim Sivill?"

"Nothing. He's squeaky clean."

Bob Spring stuck his head into the room then. "He's hit again."

Hotch nodded, his whole demeanour cold as stone. "Morgan, Rossi, Reid, go with Agent Spring."

"This one's different," Spring said with a smile tilting the corners of his mouth.

"Oh?" Dave arched an eyebrow.

"We have a witness."

"A living victim?"

"A neighbour."

* * *

Emily hated being left behind in the precinct. It gave her very little to do and very little to focus on and allowed her mind to concentrate on the problems and worries that plagued her. It was easier to compartmentalize when she had something different to focus on. What surprised her was how relieved she'd been when Hotch had decided to stay behind too. She wasn't sure when she'd come to look at him as strong support. Not only that, but she'd gotten quite the shock when he'd absently brushed her shoulder on his way by and her body had quite heatedly reminded her of what he'd felt like pressed against her front. She'd been prepared to break down, for Pete's sake, and yet all her body could remember was how his chest had felt pressed against hers, how his arms had felt wrapped around her body.

She'd jumped every time the phone rang, jolted every time the door opened and cursed herself every time. She could feel tears punching at her eyes, but forced herself to stay seated until she couldn't take it anymore. Emily managed to calmly excuse herself to the bathroom. When she got there, she didn't step into a stall. She could barely make her feet move further once the door had closed. Instead, she slid down the wall, as the flood began and she cursed herself even more. Emily Prentiss did not cry. It was something that had been drilled into her since childhood. If she was alone in her room where she could muffle sobs in the pillow, no one had to know, but when there were things to be done, crying was simply unacceptable.

_Well Mother,_ she thought to herself, _this one time, we'll have to make an exception._

She froze when the door creaked open, knowing she was curled up in a ball against the wall. Then came the now-all-to-familiar heat on her knees and she could have sworn she wanted to die.

--

Hotch had considered sending JJ after Emily. After all, it would be more logical for a woman to enter the woman's washroom that it would be for him, but as much as logic often won out, this was far from logical. This, without a doubt, was much more emotional. And sometimes, even the strongest of men give into their emotions.

So he'd excused himself and followed Emily's path, glancing around to see if there was anyone watching. When he was sure there wasn't, he pushed open the door. His heart clenched painfully to see her curled into herself against the wall. The door closed behind him and he reached over to lock it, both to give them privacy and, more importantly, to give her at least semi-privacy to put herself back together.

"Go away," she whispered, just loud enough so as not to muffle it too terribly in her knees.

He ignored her, and the slight protesting of his knees, as he leaned down in front of her. "I'm sure she'll be fine."

"Of course you're sure!" Emily exploded. "This is clinical for you! Just another case, just another victim, just another unsub, but it's not just another case _to me_. This is a sixteen-year-old girl being stalked by a crazy murder who has killed more than thirty people in the last eight years in an attempt to get to her. And you know what the worst part is? He called her _from my cell phone_ probably to get her to come back to Seattle so he can grab her and kill her. How the hell do you think it feels to actually look at a real victim as a daughter?"

Her hands were waving and he'd leaned away so as not to get smacked in the face. It took him a couple of tries to catch said hands in his own. "This isn't clinical, Emily." He knew he'd caught her attention with the unwitting passion in his voice.

"What?"

"This isn't just another case to any of us. If you're hurting, so are we," he told her seriously.

She scoffed. "You worry about the integrity of the case, about whether or not I'm going to jeopardize any part of it."

He had no idea how to get through to her. He squeezed her hands in his, trying to convey through his expression how untrue her statement was. "You wouldn't be here if I was worried about your objectivity, you know that, we've talked about that. I know how much Leah means to you, I've _seen _how much she means to you and I can almost guarantee you, the minute you brought that young woman into the bullpen, this became more than 'just another case' to all of us."

He had no idea where this was coming from. Where was he getting these reassuring words? They were her job because he was the one who went to her when things went south with Haley, when a case was bad, when he could feel himself start to struggle too hard. She'd taken every bit of it, every story, every rant and he knew she hadn't told another soul. She'd kept his confidence and he trusted her implicitly, with anything. But this was the first time he'd ever been on the giving end of their peculiar relationship. Emily wasn't one to need reassurance, to need someone to rant to. Or at least she hadn't been up to that point.

He moved to sit beside her, making sure his shoulder rested against hers, letting her hands go in the process. "Emotion always makes us vulnerable, but it's that vulnerability that makes us human."

Emily wrinkled her brow. "Aristotle?"

"Aaron Hotchner, but thank you," he replied with a wry smile. Still, it got the slight chuckle he'd been looking for. She surprised him when she reached out and laced her fingers with hers.

"Thanks Hotch," she said softly.

He turned to look at her, his other hand coming up to brush at the red tear streaks on her face. He saw the change in her eyes, how they darkened with awareness, and yet, she didn't pull away in the slightest. He wanted to comfort her, wanted to take away some of the pain in her eyes. He wanted to kiss her, desperately, and he knew she was vulnerable enough right now to let him. But Hotch wanted to be on equal playing ground with her. If he was going to kiss her, he didn't want to feel like he was taking advantage.

So instead, he tipped her head down slightly, pressing his lips to her forehead instead, the contact just that little bit too long to be considered fatherly or platonic.

"Em? Hotch?" came JJ's voice as she knocked on the door.

"What is it, JJ?"

"Leah's plane landed half an hour ago. Security's holding her now."

He saw the relief in Emily's eyes and pulled her to her feet. He stood aside as she scrubbed at the redness of her. He reached for the lock, then the handle, surprised when her hand closed on his. Then there was soft pressure against his mouth and a warm hand on his chest, but only for a split second. There was a new determination in her eyes and a spark of surprise. If he read her right, kissing him, as brief as it was, had been an impulse.

She flashed him a nervous smile. "Because you wouldn't do it."

Then she was gone.

* * *

**_See? This is what happens when the characters take over! Okay, and what happens when I want Emily to make the first move. Bother. _**

**_There's probably about 4 or 5 chapters left in this. I think. But we all know how that can work out. Look at One of Your Own, for those of you brave enough to read both. It was only supposed to be about 25 chapters. This one will be ending before 30, that much I know. _**

**_What do you think? Should they find Leah? Let me know when you review!_**


	15. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Emily had no idea what had come over her. She'd just kissed her supervisor in the women's bathroom of a Seattle precinct. Sure, it had pretty much been simple pressure and release, but she'd still done it and it had still crossed that proverbial line.

There were a million things she knew she could chalk it up to. She could blame it on her over-emotional state, but she had a feeling that was exactly why he'd pulled back. She could blame it on the need for contact, for a reminder that she wasn't dealing with this alone, but that just seemed like it was belittling the friendship they'd built. Or, she could blame it on the moment of heat that had settled in her stomach when she thought he was going to kiss her first. That was more likely the reason.

Still, she kept her gaze out the window as they drove to the airport, deliberately keeping her gaze away from his. She'd been trying Leah's cell phone since they'd gotten in the car, but, against sixteen-year-old stereotypical behaviour, had kept it off. What was she going to do if they didn't get to her in time? What if security let her go for whatever reason? Well, besides her wringing someone's neck. She sighed as she hung up Hotch's phone again. Hers was still being processed.

"I need a new phone."

Hotch didn't reply. Emily's stomach froze. Had she made a mistake? Had she read him wrong? She liked to believe she could read him after what they'd been through. It took her a few moments to realize his hands were shaking on the wheel. Why? It actually scared her.

So she said nothing for the rest of their ride to the airport, simply watched the passing scenery debating what one earth was going on in his head and why the heck she was so off-kilter. And whether Leah was going to be in the airport when they got there. Emily knew the young woman could be persuasive when she wanted to be.

It wasn't until the airport was in sight that Hotch spoke.

"We do this calmly," he told her, not looking at her. "We do this together."

"And if he's there with her? If he's holding a gun to her head?"

"Emily, security is holding her, I'm sure she's fine."

"She's still not answering her phone," Emily almost protested, even as she took her time getting out of the car. Her hand went to her gun, force of habit, really.

He came around the car and grasped her elbow. "You go in there, gun drawn, panicked and anything could happen. The last thing we want to do is spook the public."

Emily closed her eyes, knowing he was right, trying to focus herself. She wanted Leah, that was all, and if security did have her, then Hotch was right and she was probably in good hands. JJ would have made sure they release her into no one else's custody. Emily took a little bit of comfort in that. Still, her pace was quick as she followed the signs to the security office, hand already in her pocket for her badge before the man had to even ask for it.

"She's right in there."

She'd been calm and collected enough going through the airport, she figured she'd met Hotch's criteria, so she wasn't as careful as she opened the door to the room the guard had directed her to. "Leah!"

"Aunt Em!"

Emily held the thin body tight her own, hugging the girl as close as he could. She was safe. Safe and alive and that was all Emily could even think about asking for. She was so thankful they'd gotten to her in time, that it was a long flight from Quantico to Seattle. She pulled back, her hands on the girl's shoulders. "Don't you _dare ever_ do that again. Never. Ever. Ever."

"But he said he had you," Leah said back. "It was your phone from your number."

Emily pulled the girl close again, wrapping her arms around her tightly. "You always, _always_ ask for the person they say they've kidnapped. Specifically for this reason."

"I'm sorry," Leah said softly, her hands fisting in Emily's shirt.

"I know, honey," Emily replied, feeling her body relax slightly. She knew her anger at Leah was simply her protective instinct and fear blending and manifesting itself. She looked up as Hotch rested his hand on her shoulder.

"Leah, what can you tell us about the man on the phone?"

Leah looked up at the man over Emily's shoulder, noting how close he stood to her 'aunt'. "Um... I know it was familiar," she said. "I just... I'm not sure where from."

"From the first time, maybe?" Emily asked gently. "In Chicago?"

"I don't know," Leah admitted. "I don't know if I can remember much about it."

Emily exchanged a look with Hotch. Trauma would have blocked out any old memories, that much they were both sure, but Emily knew Hotch was sure what had held her concentration this time. "What did he tell you to do?"

"I'm not supposed to tell."

"Or what?" Emily asked with a gentle smile. "He'll kill me? I'm right here, Leah, safe and sound. Just like you."

"I have to go to Mom and Dad's house. I'm supposed to meet him there."

Emily felt Hotch step away, most likely to make the necessary call to have the house watched. Meanwhile, she took a good look at Leah. "Honey, you look exhausted."

"I haven't been sleeping," Leah admitted.

That didn't surprise Emily in the slightest. The poor girl had been through a lot in the last week or so. Nightmares were of no surprise. She held Leah close as Hotch finished his calls, one hand stroking the girl's hair.

"Morgan and Rossi are going to the house with Agent Spring. They'll be there when he comes."

"Good," Emily replied. She looked to Leah. "If it's okay, I'd like to head back to the hotel with her."

"It's a good idea," Hotch agreed. "Get some rest. I'll drop you off on the way."

Hotch had debated going back to the field office, but he knew they were in the middle of the waiting game. He hated the waiting game as much as the next agent, but they had nothing to narrow down whether their unsub was Tim Sivill, the seemingly normal soccer coach, or Don Hackney, the janitor they could put at every school across the country. So he'd elected to find a spot in the front lobby of the hotel to go over the case details until he was sure he could recite them in his sleep.

JJ had just faxed him the forensic information from Emily's phone when his dark-haired subordinate stepped down the few steps to the lobby. She now looked as weary as Leah had. "Everything okay?"

"She wouldn't let me leave. She's terrified that she's in a dream world and I have actually been kidnapped." She took a seat beside him on the small couch, kicking off her shoes to curl her legs under her.

"Did she fall asleep?"

"Eventually, yeah," Emily answered, hands lifting to her temples to rub circles on the skin.

Hotch let his hand fall to her thigh, squeezing slightly. "It's almost over."

"I know," she agreed. "The 'almost' is the problem."

"Soon," he promised, his hand coming up to cup the back of her head.

Emily groaned as his fingers started scratching. "Thank you."

Their friendship meant he knew how she often fell victim to headaches. It had only been after their friendship had grown and he'd taken to noticing those little things about her that he noticed her hands massaging her temples almost every case. When things got stressful, compartmentalizing gave her a headache. Usually, he couldn't do anything because the team was around – though he had taken to carrying aspirin for those particular situations – but this time, with things that had been changing between him, it was easy for him to reach out and offer aid in the form of touch.

She'd left her hair down that day, as she often did, and he took the opportunity to run his fingers through it. It was one thing that put Jack to sleep pretty quickly when the child was restless. It seemed to work with her too. Emily's head relaxed, lulling forward and his fingers moved down her neck, gently rubbing and stroking the skin while his mind went back to the forensic results and the case file.

"Anything in the file?"

She'd interrupted his thought processes enough to put his focus back on her, back on where they were. If it wasn't for the case file in front of him, they could be on vacation together. The thought struck him so suddenly, his fingers froze on her neck.

"Hotch? Everything okay?" Her head tilted up, hair cascading over his wrist.

"Aunt Em? Agent Hotchner?"

Hotch's hand moved away from her skin as Emily stood to go to Leah's side. "Hey honey."

Leah latched on to Emily's shirt again. "Um... I remember where I heard the voice."

"Oh?" Emily asked, stroking her niece's hair.

The poor girl had quite obviously had a nightmare, even Hotch could tell from the other side of the table.

The younger woman nodded. "And you're right, it is from Chicago."

"Okay,"

"But it's also from Seattle."

That didn't surprise either agent, but it was Hotch that grabbed one of JJ's faxes and held it out for the girl. "This him?"

"Yeah," Leah agreed. "That's him."

Emily arched an eyebrow. "Well that changes things."

Hotch couldn't agree more.


	16. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

--

Emily hated late nights with a passion unrivalled by anything else in the world. Even the most boring political functions had nothing on late nights. Late nights, to her, meant problems. They meant that something wasn't settling right in the case she was working, meant the team was unsettled about something. And there were often times she felt that some of them had to pick up slack from the others. She didn't mind it, especially if it was JJ they sent home early, but that didn't make her like the late nights anymore.

But the worst late nights were the ones where they stood around for ages waiting for a suspect to crack. Emily had refused to go talk to the school teachers earlier in the day when they figured out exactly who they were dealing with. She wanted to be in close contact with Leah, who was now asleep on the couch in Spring's office, and wasn't planning on leaving the Seattle field office any time soon. But she couldn't just sit around and do nothing. Dave had taken Reid to pick up the White's from their safe house. Derek was in with Hotch trying to get Tim Sivill to admit not only to why he'd been mulling about the White home, but that he had committed all of the murders that had brought them to Seattle in the first place.

But the guy wasn't budging.

Emily sighed wanting to bang her head on the one-way glass. They were getting nowhere. Then she had an idea. Her phone came out, the new one the Seattle tech department had given her complete with all of her numbers and she hit the number for Garcia.

_"Glinda, Good Witch of the North, how can I help you Auntie Em?"_

"You have facial recognition software, right?"

_"Of course I do. Made it myself. How's Leah."_

"Asleep, thank goodness. I don't think she can believe her high school soccer coach killed her family. Can it find someone too?"

_"Honey, it can do whatever I need or want it to do."_

"Take Tim Sivill's picture and run it against local newspapers?"

_"What are you thinking?"_

"If we want to get this guy, we have to be able to put him in all of the cities. We've got his prints on my phone and we've got Leah, but we need to be able to put him in the other cities."

_"Oh, sweetheart, is my Chocolate Adonis in there with him?"_

"And Hotch. He's not budging."

_"Ah, you want to drown him."_

"Please," Emily agreed. "Thanks, Pen."

_"It's no problem, though it's going to take a couple of hours to work through it."_

Emily could tell there was something else Garcia wanted to ask her. The silence that followed was too filled with tension not to be. "What's up, Pen?"

_"How are you doing?"_ the other woman asked.

"Leah's safe, so I'm good," Emily replied honestly, no accusation in her voice. "Now we just need the evidence to put someone away and I'll be a happy camper."

Garcia hummed her agreement. Then, _"Em..._"

"Don't," Emily cut her off gently. "I'm not upset, Pen. I'm not mad at you for anything, okay? She's old enough to make decisions for herself."

"_I just-_"

"You just nothing." Emily's tone was firm. "The fact that we can't change what happened aside, she's fine and that's all I can ask for."

_"How can you be so calm about this?_" Garcia asked, blowing out a breath.

Emily laughed. "When I figure it out, I'll let you know."

_"I'll call when these results come in," _the other woman promised.

"Cross them with-"

_"The schools the victims went to, I know,"_ Garcia said with a laugh. "_This ain't my first rodeo, cowgirl."_

"Thanks Pen."

_"Anytime."_

* * *

"Damn it!"

"Morgan," Hotch reprimanded sharply. They'd just left the interrogation room. Tim Sivill was not budging and both men were starting to lose their cool. Morgan just preferred to express it by slamming a fist into the nearby wall.

"Are we even sure it's him?" Morgan asked as the men moved off down the hall.

"Leah's sure and she's our witness."

"You know eyewitness testimony is the least reliable form of evidence."

"We know he made the call to Leah. His prints are all over Emily's phone."

"Why didn't Leah identify him before now, Hotch? Why couldn't she tell us?"

"I don't think even she knew the connection."

Hotch and Morgan had made it to the room allocated to the BAU for the duration of their stay where Emily was spread out across the conference table. She had pictures upon pictures laid out in front of her and a spark in her eyes that not only made Hotch's heart jump, but made him curious as to what she'd managed to find.

"There's a connection?"

"Oh yeah. I'm not sure why we didn't see it before."

Morgan sat down across from her, sliding a few pictures his way. She reached across and slapped at him. He raised his hands in defence. "Okay, then what is it?"

"Soccer."

Hotch raised an eyebrow.

"I know, it seems really convenient," Emily said, understanding the things he didn't say. "I mean, especially coming from me who would like nothing more than to see someone fry for this, but I'm not kidding. Garcia's running facial recognition software on school photos, teacher logs... whatever she can to see if Sivill's been travelling across the country. Meanwhile, I went back and looked through the files. I found soccer."

That was good enough for Hotch. He sat down beside Morgan. "I'm listening."

"Each family member had a soccer player in their midst, whether it was with school or house league," Emily began. "These pictures are of the younger kids' rooms. What do you see?"

Now he was looking for it, Hotch could see the little bits of soccer scattered throughout. A soccer ball here, a complete soccer-themed room there... "What does this have to do with Sivill?"

"Garcia did a full background check on him. Turns out, he referees for house league games. He did in Chicago and he does here."

"That gives him access to a whole raft of kids," Morgan agreed.

"Exactly," Emily nodded triumphantly. "That's not all."

Goodness, she was beautiful when she was on a roll. Hotch tried to get himself to focus on her words. "Keep going then."

"I had Garcia go back to check records. When the families were killed and we identified them as part of a stream, we did full scale background checks. We looked at what the kids were doing, what the parents were doing, anything and everything. Between the Chicago families and the Seattle families they all had a younger child registered in soccer."

"Right..."

"A _younger_ child," Emily stressed. "And look at these rooms. They're scattered with trophies plaques... these are the fridges from a few of the households. See how they're plastered with things? Garcia blew up the pictures, they're all from the same kid."

"And none of it belongs to the oldest," Hotch said, catching on.

Emily's smile widened. "Bingo."

"Then what about the Scotts?"

"A mistake," Emily answered, shuffling pages around. "Here's a picture of the whole family." She slid the glossy page towards them. "And here's a picture of Lindsay O'Reilley."

"The babysitter?" Hotch asked to clarify.

"You're kidding. You're sure they're not sisters?" Morgan asked, holding the two pictures side-by-side.

"Oh yeah, I'm sure. Leah was the oldest of two. Lindsay just _acted_ like an older sister."

"An unsung hero," Hotch murmured absently, his mind catching up with her conclusions.

"Whoa, you mean this guy targeted families with a star kid?" Morgan asked, not fully following.

"A soccer star, _younger_ kid," Emily agreed. "We already know he watched the families, knew everything about them. He knew where they lived, and since the blood was always confined to the upstairs and the specific rooms, he knew the layout of the houses."

"Footprints on the carpet are methodical," Hotch agreed. "As little backtracking as possible."

"And look, see the deaths of the younger children?"

"That's rage," Morgan agreed. "So what?"

"He's only raging at the one kid. Why made the eldest look like a suicide?" Emily asked, posing rhetorical questions. "There's no point."

"Unless the rage is directed at a younger sibling of his own and he identifies with the oldest," Morgan finished. "Holy cow, Em."

The brunette plopped into her seat, energy spent now that she'd explained her findings to someone else. "It's not concrete, but it gives us something to work with."

Hotch agreed with a nod. "Have Garcia find a sibling for Tim Sivill and pull as many records as she can. I want to know what has this guy so angry at his own blood."


	17. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

--

I was because he thought his brother got more attention than he did. That was the reason behind Tim Sivill's killing streak not only in Chicago and Seattle, but across the country. He was acting out his own sick fantasy by killing mothers, fathers and children. Then Leah had come along and _survived_. So his mission had changed, but only slightly. Kill the one who got away, so she didn't have to suffer without a family. Still, witness protection had done its duty and he hadn't been able to find her.

Until he'd, by fluke, shown up at Franklin High School. He and Don Hackney, the janitor they'd looked at, had been long standing friends. Unfortunately for Don, he was the one that had been the unfortunate recipient of a 'murderer' tag because they'd looked at him so closely in Chicago. The worst part was, however, that Don Hackney was getting harassed for Tim Sivill's crimes. Nevertheless, Sivill bided his time, knowing that Leah's friends had heard him call her by that name. He wanted to make sure it had pretty much been forgotten before he thought about striking out.

And Emily had stood listening to the whole thing. Listened while Hotch buried him in evidence from the latest crime scene. Listened while he told the sorry tale of how his brother was a famous professor and he was a simple gym coach, of how his parents doted on his brother. And the only thing she could think of while standing there was the sixteen-year-old girl asleep in the conference room under JJ's watchful eye. Had he ever thought about what his actions had done to Leah? Had he ever stopped, just for a moment, to consider that maybe not every family was like that?

Even after Hotch and Derek had left the interrogation room, Emily watched Sivill through the mirror. He'd needed to kill, that was why he'd killed the girls in between. That wasn't a sick fantasy, that was pure need, plain and simple. He'd fry and they all knew it. She didn't look up as Hotch settled a hand on her shoulder.

"It's over."

"I know."

"Then why are you still standing in here?"

Emily blew out a breath. "He didn't think about it. He never stopped to wonder if maybe he was actually helping these kids. He chased Leah for _eight years_, Hotch."

"And never laid a hand on her," he reminded her. He had never seen the woman in front of him so emotional. He'd never thought she was fantastic. He'd watched her battle some pretty spectacular things while working the case, not only an unsub, but herself. As painful as it had been to watch, she'd come out of it now, all in one piece.

"I filed for some days off," she told him flat out. "I want to make sure Leah's going to be okay."

"Are you going to move her back to Washington?"

Commotion drew her attention and both agents moved swiftly out the door. But it was simply Liz and David White reuniting with the daughter. Emily smiled.

"I'd thought about it," she admitted. "I've been there for her for years, but..." She sighed gesturing to the way Liz was squeezing Leah, the way David's arms were wrapped around them both. "Leah has a family here, a life here, a life she built in spite of Sivill. I can't take that away from her. I _won't_ take that away from her."

Hotch was silent. He hadn't originally wanted to influence her either way, though he'd been of the opinion that it was hard enough to do their own jobs, let alone do their jobs and raise a teenager. Sure, Leah was almost fully grown and independent, but still.

"And I can't raise a kid, Hotch," she said, still watching Leah and the Whites. "The job is so hard and so demanding. I love it, and I'm not sure what I'd do if I wasn't BAU, but it's not really conducive to raising a family."

"You'd find a way to balance both," he told her honestly. He believed it too. If Emily ever got the chance to be a mother, he was sure she'd be superb at it. His hand went absently to her lower back, pressing against her shirt, stroking gently

"It wouldn't be fair to Leah, to take her away from all this, and it wouldn't be fair to Liz and David. She's been their daughter for eight years when they couldn't have children of their own. She's part of their lives and I can still be part of hers without taking her away from all of this."

He was proud of such a decision. It took a lot of courage to let a loved one go, especially a loved one Emily was so obviously attached to. But she was right. She'd been a part of Leah's life for eight years without even seeing the girl. She could probably do it better now that they were allowed constant contact. He'd hate to see what their phone bills were about to be. "When are you going to tell Leah?"

"This week," she replied. "I've taken the three days leave and I'll be back into work on Monday."

He was surprised the application had gone through that fast, but then again, she'd probably done it through Garcia. "I'll pick you up from the airport." It was the least he could do.

"That would be nice," she agreed, almost nervously.

His arm moved to her hip as she turned to face him and he left it there. "It's no problem."

"It's always nice to have someone there to greet you when you come home," she said eyes on the top button of his collar.

There were so many responses he could have given her, so many he _wanted_ to give her, but they weren't in the right place for that. He was going to give her time to settle things here before he addressed what was going on between them. Her kiss still lingered in the back of his mind and had haunted his dreams in the short time he'd managed to sleep the night before. Except the kiss he imagined was quite as chaste.

His thumb stroked in circles on her hip and she could feel warmth spreading through her. His touch had that effect as of late and it made her almost shiver in anticipation. "Especially someone who cares about you."

And there it was, right out in the open. Emily shivered at the pleasure that swept through her blood stream. "Especially when it's someone you care about."

Their moment was unwittingly interrupted by none other than Elizabeth White. "Agent Prentiss, I... I don't know what to say. Is it really over?"

"It's really over," Hotch reassured the woman, knowing this had to be hard enough for Emily. There was always something that went missing when an agent solved a case that haunted them. Hotch wasn't sure if Leah had become the reason Emily did her job or not, but he suspected that the personal days were as much for her balance as Leah's.

"I can't thank you enough for what you've done, for what you did," Liz gushed, tears in her eyes. "We were so afraid when Leah confirmed it was the same person. And being in protective custody, not knowing where she was..."

"Mom, I was fine," Leah said in exasperation, coming up beside her mother. Though she stood next to the woman, she reached out and took Emily's hand.

"Until you got a hero complex and flew to Seattle on your own," Emily reprimanded. "Then no one was sure if you were safe. How did you pay for that flight, anyway?"

Leah looked suitably guilty. "Emergency credit card."

Liz almost laughed in relief. "Honey. I think that constituted an emergency."

* * *

Emily and Hotch were packing up the last of the BAU's things later that afternoon when Leah stepped nervously into the room. Emily smiled at her, waving her in, noticing Hotch speed up out of the corner of her eye. He made quick work of the files he was packing and, with a gentle brush to her back, something that seemed to be happening more and more often, especially in the last few hours, left.

"So that's it?" Leah asked.

"For the case," Emily agreed. "Looks like it's just my box."

"Oh."

There was silence for a few minutes as Emily made a show of checking the files she was putting away.

"Mom and Daddy are glad to be back. I told them to head home without me."

"How are you getting home?"

"Agent Spring's going to drive me to see you guys off, then he'll drive me home."

"You've got a real friend in Bob, you know," Emily said, giving up all pretences and turning to face the young woman.

Leah smiled slightly. "He's been really good to us."

Silence again.

"Are you going home now?"

The vulnerability was what clued Emily in to the question being the crux of the matter. "Not yet," she said.

"Can't you stay just for- What?"

"I'm not going yet, honey. I'm going to stay in Seattle a few days, make sure everything can go back to normal."

Leah jumped up. "You mean it?" she asked,

"Of course I mean it," Emily laughed. "I'm here until Sunday, but then I have to go home."

Leah gave a high-pitched squeal and threw herself into Emily's arms. "Mom says I don't have to go back to school until Friday so we have two whole days together!"

Emily laughed.

* * *

**_Someone asked in my other story if I'd finish this one first before starting on the sequel to One of Your Own and I'm going to try. The first chapter of Growing Up BAU is already written so it would, in theory, be easy to post, but I am quite swamped and discovered such last night. I do want to put BAU up in the next couple of days, but I'll move this one to my priority since it is almost done. Just a little bit left!_**


	18. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

--

"Aunt Em?"

"Mmhmm?" Emily replied absently, browsing through the clothing on a nearby rack. She and Leah were spending the day shopping, spending some time together before Emily had to return to Virginia.

"Um... Do I have to go to school tomorrow?"

Emily stopped browsing, turning to Leah. "I'm sorry?"

"Can you convince Mom to call me in sick?"

"Leah, what's going on?"

"I just want to spend another day with you," she responded and though Emily could tell it was a lie, it was a well-rehearsed one.

"Honey, you need to go back to school. It's the next step in getting your life back."

Leah sighed, fingers brushing over the fabric of nearby clothes. "I know."

"Then do you want to tell me what's really bothering you?" Emily asked, guiding the young woman out of the store, smiling politely at the saleswoman who had been all but stalking them. She found a nearby bench and sat the girl down.

"I just want to spend time with you."

"Honey, I want to spend time with you too, but is that really what going to school is about?" Emily had known Leah was going to have a little bit of a difficult time adjusting back into life as she used to know it, but she did have faith she would. This didn't exactly come as a surprise, it was just a matter of figuring out exactly what it was that was bothering her.

"What else could it be?"

Defensive, so there was something else that was bothering her. "You aren't excited to see your friends?"

Silence. Ah.

"Leah, they're your friends."

"But I lied to them."

"You didn't really get much of a choice in it," Emily responded logically. "You _couldn't_ say anything."

"There should have been a way to at least hint to them that there were a lot of things I couldn't tell them."

Emily remembered the interviews with Leah's closest friends, how they often alluded to an entire life that Leah wouldn't talk about. She remembered the students being confused and a little curious. "Now you can."

"How?" Leah inquired. "How do you tell your best friend of eight years that there's an entire half of your life she knows nothing about?"

"You go slow," Emily coached. "Tomorrow, you can start telling them bits and pieces, but maybe do a night where you can sit down with them and just tell them about it."

"What if they don't want to be my friend?"

Emily looked at the woman she'd thought was so incredibly strong. The worry about not having friends was not something that she'd seriously considered would be going through Leah's head. "That doesn't mean you shouldn't try."

Tears were pooling in Leah's eyes and she reached out to play with the snap on Emily's purse. "I hate him."

Ah, anger was something she definitely expected. "I know, Le," Emily replied, taking the hand that was fiddling with her purse. "It sucks."

Leah chuckled slightly. "You never realize how much it ruins your life," she said wisely. "I was living a different life and I don't know what to do."

"There's nothing that says you have to stop living that life."

"But then what am I supposed to do with 'Leah Scott'?"

"You don't have to let her go," Emily insisted. "She's still a part of you."

"Then who is 'Annabelle White'?"

Emily took a mental deep breath. "Leah, you had a life in Chicago, a full life, with friends and family and activities and school... that will always be a part of you. There's nothing you can do to change that, nothing you can do and nothing anyone else to tell you anything different."

"A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet," Leah almost mumbled. "It sounds easier than it is."

Emily sighed, moving their bags and things out of the way so she could pull Leah against her side to hug her tightly. "I know. But it'll get easier."

"Time. It's always time."

"I know," Emily chuckled slightly, kissing Leah's hair. "But you have support. You have tonnes of support."

"But if I'm moving with you then I'm leaving it all behind anyway and starting new. Do I use Anabelle then?"

Emily was stunned by Leah's blunt, straight forward way of bringing up a subject that she felt was a little touchy. She hasn't talked to Leah about staying in Seattle. "Leah, I want you to stay here."

"What?"

"I want you to stay in Seattle."

"But...I don't understand."

Emily took both of her hands, focusing all of her attention on the sixteen-year-old. "I love you. You're like a daughter to me, but you have a life here, a life you've spent eight years building. You have friends, you have parents that love you, you have such a support system here without me. We have e-mail, now we can call, and I can visit and you can come visit me."

"You don't want me."

Emily chuckled slightly. "That's not what this is about. This is about _you_. And you need to stay here with the life you've built instead of uprooting for two years. And I travel all the time. You'd be home by yourself too often for me to like it."

"But you're all by yourself.

"I am," Emily agreed, "But I have a family in Virginia too. I have JJ and Derek and Reid and that's okay with me."

"And Agent Hotchner."

Emily looked away. She and Hotch had been communicating almost since the moment he left. He'd called her last night and they'd been texting back and forth as he checked on her and Leah. She had no idea what it meant. While they'd exchanged vaguely caring statements, she didn't know if it would amount to anything. She wasn't sure what to think at all. "And Hotch."

"What if I wanted to come back with you?"

"You don't, honey. You want to stay here with your friends, with your family, with a routine you know... It'll help you get everything back to normal."

"I haven't been normal for eight years."

"And now you get the chance to be. Leah, you know I travelled a lot as a kid, you know what my parents did. I would have _killed_ for a shred of normalcy. You have that chance."

"Until the trial. Are you going to come back for the trial?"

"I don't know," Emily admitted honestly. "There's a lot of depending factors in it."

"You worked the initial case and you're here on this one so you know it better than anyone else," Leah protested. "You_ have_ to come."

Emily laughed. "Leah, you're not listening to me," she said. "I told you that I'd come visit and you can come visit me. Just because this case is over doesn't mean we'll lose touch by any stretch of the imagination."

"Promise?"

"I promise," Emily replied, leaning forward to kiss Leah's forehead. "Now come on. There's shoe store up there and I want a new pair of boots."

* * *

**_My apologies for this being short and pretty much pointless. _**

**_I think, by my math, there are 2 chapters of this left. One actual chapter and a short epilogue for when Emily returns to Virginia. Then I'm going to start posting the sequel to One of Your Own and work on my Christmas story. Those are going to be Emily-Hotch overload! _**

**_Review!_**


	19. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18**

--

The only way Emily and Liz could convince Leah to go to school the next day was to promise her Emily would take her. Leah had come around to Emily's side of the car as the older woman got out.

"This is where I leave you, you know?" Emily said, tucking hair behind Leah's ear. In another life, another job, she would have taken Leah home with her in an instant.

"Can't you walk me to my locker? Please?"

"Bells?"

Leah turned swiftly to find Danielle behind her, flanked by Justin and Cait. "Hi," she said shyly.

Danielle looked down at her hands, then back up at Leah. "I'm sorry."

Emily felt Leah stiffen and reached out a hand, absently stroking her forearm.

"I'm the one that should be sorry," she said quietly.

Justin was shaking his head before she'd even finished the comment, stepping towards her. "No way. We get it, we do. You couldn't because of the danger and all that."

"Still-"

"There's no still," Cait said softly, quiet calm. "You had to do what you had to do to keep yourself alive and we understand that."

"You-" She had to stop to swallow. "You do?"

"Well, theoretically anyway," Danielle agreed, coming forward to link her arm with Leah's. "You're still you, right? You weren't acting as someone else when you were here."

Leah was shaking her head before Danielle had even finished asking the question. "I tried not to be."

"Then why does it matter?" Cait agreed, coming to link with Leah's other arm. "A rose by any other name-"

"Would still smell as sweet," Leah finished with a smile.

Emily could tell she was feeling much more comfortable now with where she was and that her friends weren't going to abandon her.

"Hey, Annie."

Emily watched, eyebrow raised as Leah's complete attention shifted to a dark-haired young man with a British accent. She watched the sixteen-year-old blush a bright red.

"Hey Geoff," Leah replied but didn't move from her spot.

Emily almost laughed at Danielle's curious look.

"Jamie's been waiting at your locker, you know," Danielle told her as they started walking away. "Oh, and do we call you Belle or Leah? That was confusing."

Leah smiled widely. She and Emily had talked about that on their shopping trip and Leah had made the executive decision to make 'Leah Scott' her middle names. "Whatever you want to call me."

"Potato it is!"

* * *

Emily smiled as hung up the phone. She stood out on the front porch of the White home, having been invited to dinner the night before she was to leave. They'd been in the middle of dessert when her phone had gone off, vibrating against her hip. She'd checked her caller ID and apologized for having to take the call.

It had been Hotch and for a moment, she'd thought he was calling to tell her she needed to come home early, that she had to jump on the next flight back to Virginia. But that hadn't been the reason he was calling and she'd related her day with Leah back to him. He'd shared his own day with his son and Emily had to admit, she was warmed from the inside to realize that he was starting to open up to her.

She'd reassured him that she'd be home tomorrow and she'd text him her flight information at the end of their conversation and he'd reassured her he'd be there, as someone who cared about her. And Emily now had a serious warm fuzzy feeling in her stomach.

"Emily."

Emily looked up to find Liz White poking her head through the doorway. "Hey, Liz. Sorry about that."

"It's no problem. Was that Agent Hotchner?"

Emily blinked. "It was." How had Liz come up with that conclusion.

"Annabelle thought it probably him. She said you seemed pretty close working on her case."

Emily felt herself blushing. "He was very understanding."

"Understanding?"

"About Leah. About how important the case was to me."

Liz stepped out onto the porch with a smile. "From what Annabelle says he truly cares about you."

"Leah's idealistic."

"She is," Liz allowed. "But I saw how you interacted with him, too. There's more than professional courtesy there."

"We're friends. I helped him through a rough time with his ex-wife."

Liz chuckled. "Why are so many young people so against just accepting when someone may be more than a friend? It took me ages to explain to Annabelle that Jamie was hanging out by her locker because he liked her. And goodness me, have you seen her face when you bring up the boy in her English class?"

Emily laughed along with the other woman. She hadn't talked to Leah about her English class, but she'd seen the way the sixteen-year-old had reacted to seeing Geoffery Losh again. "There's a little bit more to my situation than that," she said.

"Emily, if there's one thing Annabelle has taught us, it's that you have to grab on to what you do have in life. You can't sit there dwelling on the what ifs and the maybes. There's too much to life and not enough time to fuss."

"It's a little bit more complicated," Emily repeated with a small smile.

"He's your boss?"

"For one."

"Ah."

"I love my job, Liz. A lot. I don't know what I'd do if something happened between us then it all fell apart and I had to leave the team."

"He could."

"No." And Emily would always be adamant about that. "The BAU is what I do and as much as I love it, it's who he is. That team has been every inch cultivated by Aaron Hotchner and I won't take that away from him."

"Does he feel the same?"

"About me?"

"About the situation. I can tell he feels the same about you."

Emily felt the heat flooding her cheeks again. "I don't know," she admitted.

"Well, it doesn't seem fair to judge the potential of a relationship between you when you don't know his side," Liz said logically, appealing to Emily's rational side. "That seems like a terrible way to gauge what could happen."

Emily looked out onto the quiet Seattle street. "I'm just not sure I'm willing to risk it."

"He is."

"What?"

"I'm a mother, Emily. I look for those things. David still looks at me the way Agent Hotchner was looking at you in Agent Spring's office."

That was a comment Emily hadn't been expecting. David and Liz had been married for almost twenty-five years. They had been Emily's first choice family for placing Leah.

"Look, dear, you need to jump at every opportunity," the older woman said, reaching out to place a hand on Emily's shoulder. "You never know when that opportunity might pass you by."

Emily smiled. "Thanks Liz."

"It's no problem. Now come inside, I'm sure it's almost time for you to go."

* * *

**_Now the epilogue and this baby's done! I almost can't believe it._**

**_Review!_**


	20. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

--

Hotch was nervous.

Like she'd promised, Emily had texted him her flight information and he'd tracked her flight just to make sure it was in on time. But still, when adding time to get baggage, he was left waiting in the arrivals lounge. Still, that wasn't what was tying his stomach in knots. There were a few things that he was nervous about. For one thing, he had no idea how she was going to react to seeing him.

He'd made a conscious effort over the last few days to reach out to her, to check up on her and on Leah, but he had no idea how she'd felt about that. Linguistics was her expertise not his. He read human behaviour and it was difficult to do that over the phone. He'd caught some of the little nuances of her voice, but it wasn't exactly perfect. He'd much rather see her.

Which he was about to do in only a few minutes.

His entire attention was on the doors that kept opening and closing, on the people who kept finding and hugging their loved ones, people who came to pick them up. He could tell who was happy to be there and who was there for professional reasons. He could tell by the hand shakes, the hugs, the squeals and so his mind was in overdrive trying to figure out how Emily would greet him. And how he would greet her.

He wanted to just pull her into his arms. He wanted to hold her tight, to kiss her hello, to be able to tell her that he'd missed her in the five days she'd been away. He wanted to take her home, to keep her close and not let her go. He'd never expected to miss her as much as he did, but the moment he couldn't turn to her in the plane to ask her a question he'd realized that he was more used to her than he'd thought.

So he'd reached out, unsure of whether or not she'd respond and she had, in earnest. Much like she confided in him during the case, she confided in him now, telling him about her shopping trip with Leah, about the girl's difficulties adjusting to the fact that it was possible for her to live a normal life now. He'd been ecstatic that she was talking to him, texting him, responding to all of his messages.

So where part of him was sure of her affections, the other part of him, the part that tried to rationalize everything, told him he was looking for something where there was nothing.

Then he saw her come through the doors, ready bag slung over her shoulder, laptop on the same. He watched her searching the faces in the crowd for his, then felt his heart rate speed up at the way her face lit up when she saw him. He found himself moving before he'd even realized he was, his pace quickening with hers. They stopped right in front of each other, barely a breath of air between them. He saw something shift in her eyes before she was against him completely, her hands cupping his face and her lips on his.

It didn't take much persuasion on her part to get him to respond. One of his hands rose to her neck, cupping and angling her head as he took over the kiss. This time, he wasn't going to be caught off guard and he was going to show her exactly what he wanted to do to her. His other hand splayed across her back, pulling her lower body into his, feeling her chest up against his own. It didn't take much to coax her mouth open with his tongue and she responded in kind.

Eventually, they had to pull away and he watched as a delightful blush rose to paint her cheeks red. "I don't know what the Bureau would say if we said hello like that in the office."

Emily laughed and he found himself smiling. She had an uninhibited laugh when she wanted to and he'd never really noticed how free it sounded. "I'm sure we can restrain ourselves."

Hotch's hand was still around her waist, hers were still around his neck. He slipped his other hand into her hair, stroking the back of her neck with his thumb. "I'm glad you're back."

"I'm glad to be back," she responded with a softer smile. "Thank you for picking me up."

He kissed her forehead. "Anytime."

"Take me home?" she asked.

He slipped her ready bag from her shoulder, throwing it over his own before linking his hand with hers. "Anywhere."

He hoped she liked that idea as much as he did.

**- End -**

* * *

_**There we go ladies and gentlemen! Hotch-Emily sweetness, Leah home safe and sound, and the guy caught! I hope you enjoyed this journey! **_

_**For those that are watching. One of Your Own's sequel should be up within the next 24 hours. I'm trying to pace myself, but now that this is done, I'll have so much more time to focus on it. **_

_**Thanks to everyone who reviewed! I always love hearing your opinions!**_


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